


Amnesia

by MintSauce



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, obviously, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:19:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey takes a blow to the head and has to have surgery. But when he wakes up, how much can he remember? Ian/Mickey fanfic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The day his family found out, they weren't even caught doing anything bad.

No, they were caught because Mickey had been too tired to get dressed and had walked out to try and con his sister into making him some eggs in nothing but his boxers. It was all Mandy's fault really, she had to turn around and stare at him from where she was sitting next to Ian on the sofa and she had to ask loudly why the hell he had handprints on his hips.

Mickey had looked down in a sort of stupid way, looked at the shape of Ian's fingers imprinted into his skin that was visible because Mickey's boxers were riding low on his hips. He touched them briefly, felt the familiar soreness that made his dick twitch and then he'd been slammed into a wall.

Because you didn't get bruises like that from fighting, you didn't get bruises like that from fucking a girl. No, bruises like that, handprints on your hips only came from being fucked so hard from behind that when you closed your eyes hours later, you could still see stars and lights dancing there. His family maybe didn't know the specifics of the last part, but they knew it meant Mickey had been fucking someone and that he hadn't been fucking a girl.

His Dad slammed him into the wall, hands going for his throat and Mickey did the first thing he could think of when someone got him in that position. He slammed his forehead hard into his Dad's nose. There was this brief moment where his Dad started to crumple, but Terry was a Milkovich and he brought Mickey down with him.

Mickey felt his head hit the floor hard and saw stars behind his eyelids – not the good kind this time – and it only made matters worse when a fist connected with his face. He could feel himself blacking out, felt like he was sliding away, an ache in his brain somewhere near the back. It was weird because all he really thought about when he felt himself blacking out was that it was fucking unfair that he be killed by his father for not even doing something he enjoyed. Sure if the man had walked in on his with Ian buried balls deep in his ass, then maybe Mickey would have been happy to die, because that would have been the closest to heaven that Mickey was ever going to get. But no, he was going to die because of his sister's big mouth, because of some stupid bruises that he even then sort of loved.

Because he was about to die, he thought maybe he was allowed to think – even though it was so incredibly stupid – that the bruises were a good attribute to be wearing because it made him belong to Ian in some idiotic way. It made him belong to a stupid redhead who was getting out of this shitty neighbourhood, who was getting out of Chicago, going off to be all amazing and shit, leaving Mickey behind. Like Mickey had always known he would do. That was fine, he'd probably see Ian in whatever shitty afterlife there was when the kid got his ass shot off in wherever the hell he was sent with the army.

Actually, he took that back, because he didn't like the idea of Ian dying. The thoughts tasted sour on his tongue.

Another face appeared above him that wasn't his father's and that was the last thing Mickey focussed on before he passed out.

-000-

Ian hadn't really been paying attention, because he knew if he looked at Mickey he was only going to get a hard on and remember their farewell sex they'd had not hours before. Ian was off to WestPoint soon and that had put a new sort of desperation behind their actions that neither of them had the vocabulary or the courage to talk about.

He heard some comment about bruises from Mandy and then there was a bang that seemed to resound through his small house. He turned to see Mickey being pinned to the wall by his Dad, saw the dazed look in Mickey's eyes harden as he headbutted his Dad hard. And then it was a sort of blur. He saw Mickey's head snap back as it slammed into the floor, Terry landing on him hard and as soon as he saw that fist pulling back to land a punch, Ian was moving.

He wrapped an arm around Terry's neck and dug his knees into the soft parts of his sides. He gritted his teeth in determination as he felt the man underneath him catch on to exactly what Ian was doing. He only just had the time to see Mickey's eyes sliding closed before Terry was throwing them both backwards.

He clung on like some sort of retarded monkey, clung on because he didn't know what else to do, there wasn't anything else he could do. He held on even after he felt Terry go limp, just to be sure.

It was a struggle to push the now unconscious man off of him, but he was crawling towards Mickey before his brain even really registered that his body was moving. It was like every single part of him was acting on instinct, on desperation,  _for Mickey_.

The ex-con was still unconscious and Ian touched his cheek gently, relieved to hear the stuttering breath that rasped out of Mickey's lungs when he bent close to put his ear near to the older boy's mouth.

"Mandy, you're going to have to call an ambulance," he said when he noticed the blood pooling out from underneath Mickey's head. He lifted the ex-con slightly, pressed his hand against the wound that he couldn't see. He could feel the blood slick against his palm though and he thought he was going to be sick from the fear that was twisting in his gut.

She didn't even argue, just ran off into the other room to get her phone and he could hear her practically hysterical voice explaining things. He hoped the police came as well, so that Terry couldn't touch Mickey again. He knew he didn't have much time with Mickey on his own, so that was why he took that opportunity to press his lips against Mickey's, the only kiss he'd ever had from the older boy and it was sort of typical that Mickey would be unconscious when it happened.

"You'll be fine," he whispered, because he believed that. Mickey was too fucking stubborn to give up just because of a bump to the head.

That was what he kept telling himself as the paramedics came, as Mickey was put on a stretcher and lifted into the back of an ambulance, as he sat in the back with him, next to a crying Mandy. He silently told himself that as they took Mickey into surgery, as the nurse told them that they had to operate on Mickey's brain because there was severe swelling at the back and they had to get it down. He kept telling himself that even as he looked down at his hands that were sticky and red with Mickey's blood, even as he realised he didn't want to wash it off yet because as sick as it was, it linked him to Mickey somehow.

He told Mandy he was going to be fine when she clung to him while they waited, he told her again when they looked down at Mickey lying there in his coma, wondering if he'd ever wake up. He smiled and told her no problem when she thanked him for saving her brother. He was pleased when she didn't ask him to leave.

But two days later he had to anyway.

As he sat on the bus going off to his new life in the army, as he was getting out of Chicago, he told himself that when he came back, Mickey would be fine. Mickey would still be Mickey and he'd be waiting there with a smirk and a needy look.

If he didn't tell himself that, he knew better than anything that he was going to crack. And Ian had to be the strong one, he had to, because he didn't know what he was going to do it Mickey wasn't okay. He didn't want to think about it.


	2. Chapter 2

Ian,

Mickey woke up. He's going to be fine.

My Dad got life. Combination of trying to kill Mickey and all the illegal shit he had in the house. Not sorry at all. He deserves it.

Don't Die.

Love Mandy.


	3. Chapter 3

She'd said not to let them catch on. She'd told him to keep his mouth shut, to lie and he hadn't known what else to do, so he'd just agreed and nodded along with whatever the hell was said to him. He didn't understand anything, he didn't knew where he was, who he was, he felt like his brain was about to burst open from confusion

But there was the girl sitting beside his bed, her fingers digging into the flesh of his arm and a reassuring look in her eyes. He trusted her without even knowing her name, he'd trusted her as soon as he'd opened his eyes. She'd been asleep curled up in a chair and he'd reached over to touch her arm gently, asking, "Excuse me, where am I?"

Her eyes had snapped open like he'd electrocuted her. "Mickey!"

He supposed that must be him. He didn't know and he didn't want to ask, but she could tell something was wrong from the expression on his face. "Did you just say excuse me?" she asked him suddenly, her eyes widening and he didn't know what else to say, so he just stared back.

"Who are you?" he asked eventually and her eyes had widened, tears threatening to fall and that was when she'd told him to keep his trap shut, to not say anything about what had happened. He didn't question it, he just knew he didn't want her to cry, so he'd nodded and said, "Okay."

After that everything had just sort of passed in a blur.

The girl, Mandy he'd later found out had yelled at a couple of nurses and then a few hours later was walking him out of the hospital on unsteady legs. It felt like he'd been lying down for far too long. He kept his mouth shut like Mandy had instructed, didn't say anything until they'd gotten off the El, walked through an unfamiliar, dirty neighbourhood and stepped into an unfamiliar, dirty house.

The look in Mandy's eyes told him that she thought he'd recognise something, but he'd just stared back at her confused and waiting. He didn't know what he could say that would comfort her. He just knew he wanted to comfort her, he didn't like the sight of the tears that ran down her cheeks and he held him arms out, let her curl instinctively into his body, held her head against his chest.

Her hair smelt like flowers and he breathed that in, hoping the scent would stick in his nostrils because it was a much better smell than the stench of the rest of the house. Mandy seemed immune to it as she sniffled and pulled back.

She showed him into a room that had 'Stay the Fuck out' written on the door on a piece of cardboard. She showed him the bathroom, showed him which toothbrush was him and then sat on the bed with him in what he assumed was his room. It was untidy, that was the first thing he noticed. There were clothes all over the floor, most of them looked dirty and it kind of smelt. Every surface was cluttered up with a random assortment of objects and a lot of empty beer cans. He gathered that he smoked from the overflowing ashtray in amongst it all.

None of it was familiar to him.

He noticed a dent in the wall that was mostly covered in posters, he wondered what all that was about.

"What do you remember?" Mandy asked him, her knees drawn up under her chin and her back against the wall. She looked tired, her eyes wide, watery and red and her eyeliner cracked. He thought she'd look a lot better without her make-up, but he didn't have the courage to say that. He didn't think he had a right.

He shrugged and awkwardly sat down next to her. "Nothing," he admitted.

Although that wasn't strictly true. He could remember weird things, like movie plots and how to read and write and play Xbox games, but every memory that had been even mildly personal too him, faces, names, events, they'd all been wiped from his brain. It was confusing.

He didn't have a clue who he was.

The tears welled up in Mandy's eyes again.

"You're my sister," he said, hoping that if he talked maybe she wouldn't cry.

She nodded, the tears holding fast in her eyes. "Do you remember that, or did you work it out?" she asked.

He could feel the blush creeping onto his cheeks and he smiled sheepishly. "I worked it out," he admitted, "Were we close. . . I mean  _are_  we?"

She smiled weakly at his attempt to fix things. "Closer than either of us are with any of the other douchebags," she muttered and then realised that he didn't remember them and added, "There's Iggy, Nicky, Joey, you and me; but they're all twats."

He felt bad for having four siblings that he couldn't remember.

"Why was I in the hospital?" he asked then, because he had to know, "Why can't I remember anything?"

She chewed her bottom lip, like she didn't want to tell him but knew she was going to have to.

"Um, our Dad tried to kill you," she muttered eventually and he just stared at her, wondering if he'd just misheard her. She seemed to see the question, ' _why_ ' written all over his face. "He sort of found out you were gay. . . you do remember you're gay right?"

He frowned and tried to think, in the end just shrugged. He supposed he must be, but he didn't really know. She pointed up to the ceiling. "Does that turn you on?"

He looked up at the poster of Megan Fox pasted up there – how the hell he knew that was Megan Fox, but he couldn't remember his own sister, he didn't know – and frowned. "Not really," he admitted and she smirked.

"Damn, you really are gay."

"You didn't know that before?"

She shrugged, "You hid it really well, but the bruises on your hips were sort of obvious, suppose you wouldn't remember who the hell you'd been fucking?"

He shook his head, "No sorry."

"You being polite is going to freak me the fuck out, just so you know," Mandy said, "Normally you would have told me to fuck off for asking that, you wouldn't have apologised."

Mickey frowned, "But I thought you just said we were close."

"Yeah, but we're Milkovich's, we say I love you by swearing at each other," she said, matter-of-factly, like that was common knowledge. She jumped up suddenly, "I'm going to go make some food, do you want some eggs?"

He shrugged, "Um yeah okay." Just before she walked out of the room, he asked, "Is it alright if I have a shower?" He'd realised that he actually kind of stank and it was making him uncomfortable to be able to smell himself.

She looked surprised for a second and then seemed to remember that he wasn't himself. "Mick, this is your house too, don't bother asking, just do," she said before heading off to make eggs or whatever.

And even though she'd said that, he couldn't help but feel like maybe this wasn't his home. It didn't feel like it. He would have thought that he'd remember his home.

He stood for a long time in the shower, washing the dirt from his skin and feeling the muscles in his back loosen. He pressed his fingertips into the faint bruises on his hips, traced the faint silver scar on his shoulder that looked like a bite mark. He skimmed his fingers over the circular scar on his thigh and wondered what that meant. He thumbed the letters on his now clean knuckles and thought those tattoos probably said a lot about who he had been, who he was, but yet at the same time wasn't. He didn't know what to think of that person that he couldn't remember. He wasn't sure if he wanted to remember him.

He was Mickey Milkovich, but at the same time, he wasn't.

He had been Mickey Milkovich, now he was his ghost with a less sharp tongue.

When he looked in the mirror he saw a shortish boy with dark hair, blue eyes and long lashes. He was pale and there was a tiny scar underneath his eye. He was stocky with a bit of muscle clinging to him, just enough to be noticeable. He was a stranger to himself.

Now he smiled instead of smirked, now he was scared of his own shadow and clung to his sister and the familiarity of her like a small child, but he didn't feel ashamed and she didn't complain. She looked after him, talking to him, told him about who he had been and what he had done.

Mickey Milkovich had gone to Juvie twice, once after being shot while shoplifting – that explained the scar on his thigh – and the second time was for punching a cop in the face for no reason at all. He thought the person he was supposed to be sounded like an idiot. Or maybe he was just reckless. Either way, Mickey thought the old Mickey was stupid; there was no reasoning behind what he did as far as he could tell.

_"Hey, hey, look at me," hands on his thigh, gripping the wound tight. God, it hurt! It really hurt! But he wasn't going to admit that._

_"You fucking suck!"_

Mickey shook his head slightly and carried on watching the TV like nothing had just happened, like he hadn't been hearing something in his ears, remembering something that he couldn't work out. He thought maybe it was a memory, except it was nothing more than words in his mind and sounds in his ears.

Sometimes he wasn't even sure he wanted to remember.


	4. Chapter 4

Mandy explained to him a couple of days later why he had to keep his mouth shut, why he shouldn't tell anyone that he didn't remember, why he should pretend.

She said that if he told the hospital he couldn't remember, they would have kept him there and not only did she think that he was better off at home – because Milkovichs didn't do therapy – but they also couldn't afford the hospital bills if he stayed there any longer. She also told him not to tell anyone else because the person she knew as her brother wouldn't like anyone to see that weakness; but also, people would ask him what had happened and why he couldn't remember and he would have to come out. She said she'd rather have a brother who couldn't remember than a dead brother.

It made sense to him, sort of, but more than that, he just didn't want to do anything to upset Mandy. She was nice to him, she looked after him, taught him about himself, she deserved him to do this for her. As far as he was concerned anyway.

Sometimes he didn't know whether she preferred him or the old him; but he thought that more than anything she was just glad she had someone there. Because he couldn't remember anything, Mandy made it her mission to fill up his head with as many memories as possible.

They got drunk on a baseball field that for some reason made Mickey think of sex and Mandy passed out so he had to carry her back home.

They snuck into the movies and had a popcorn fight until they got kicked out.

They had a horror movie marathon and Mandy hid behind a pillow for most of it, Mickey just jumped rather a lot and couldn't work out why sometimes he wanted to laugh.

They tried to make a cake for some random reason but in the end just ate the mixture because they knew it would taste better than the cake ever could.

She also woke him up at one in the morning once to have a shots competition because she was bored; Mandy threw up first, Mickey threw up five shots later.

They had a water fight whilst it was snowing and both of them had the flu for the next week.

She taught him to shoplift and showed him all of the places he'd used to like to go, which to be honest were random and out of the way, places you'd go to get high without anybody noticing. She also did coke with him once and laughed at him when he got into a fight with the couch cushions for no reason whatsoever.

They had Thanksgiving with just the two of them, Mickey got some chicken fillet things and lied to Mandy telling her they were turkey. Mandy made too much mash potato and later on when they got high, it turned into a food fight with the left over mash. It took them two days to clean all of it up, because they kept finding it in random places.

He decided to tidy up the house a little and they lined all of the empty cans up underneath the El and shot at them with two of the many guns in the house. Mickey couldn't work out how he could remember how to shoot a gun, but not things about growing up with Mandy.

Mandy taught him how to act in public so that nobody would guess that he wouldn't remember and it felt like he was putting a mask on every time he walked out of the house. Mandy had said it was okay if he ignored people he didn't know, or if he didn't use their names or just looked at them strangely, because everybody in this neighbourhood thought he was a dick. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about that, it made him a little sad to think that everyone hated him. In the end, it didn't really matter because nobody seemed to want to talk to him anyway.

She laughed at him for enrolling in community college, but in the end she did the same thing and he made sure to laugh at her right back. He studied something to do with engineering, but in the end knew he'd just carry on working at the construction site he'd landed a job at. Mandy did a course in hair and beauty or some shit.

She bullied him into letting her pierce his ear one night when he was drunk and more than a little bit high, so he let her. He thought it looked stupid, just a little black stud in his left earlobe, but he left it there because Mandy seemed pretty damn pleased with herself every time she saw it. He couldn't work out if that was because she'd successfully pierced his ear or because she'd managed to bully him into letting her do it.

They spent a lot of time when they weren't working, or at community college, either drinking, smoking or playing video games. It made Mickey feel like an eternal teenager or something, but it was fun so he didn't complain. He thought it was weird because he didn't really like the idea of getting high all the time, but he did it because it was practically instinctive to do so.

Mandy was always telling him he freaked her out when it was just the two of them and he forgot to be a dick. He'd asked her to pass him the salt one night they'd been too lazy to cook and had gotten fish and chips. She'd corrected him saying, "You're supposed to say, 'oy bitch, salt, now'."

He couldn't imagine himself saying that, so he'd just shrugged and put salt on his chips in silence.

They'd cleaned out the house properly one day because they lost the Xbox controller and Mandy was screaming at him to find it and they had found it, but before that they'd found a mouse. Mandy had screamed some more and Mickey had laughed and picked it up because it was weirdly docile. He'd chased her around the house with it for a while and she'd put him in a headlock and he didn't know why it was instinct to twist her nipple, but it was. In the end, he'd managed to convince Mandy to hold the mouse, she'd named it Bert and they'd stolen a cage from this random pet shop down the road and now they had a pet mouse that Mandy said she'd never thought would happen ever. She told him they'd never had a pet before. He thought that made their lives sound kind of sad, but he kept that to himself.

She cried sometimes when she got the post and he'd come into her room even though she'd told him to piss off and had hugged her. He found out that she had a friend in the army who she missed a lot. She said it was her best friend and had mumbled something out about a boyfriend so he supposed that they'd been a couple at one point. He didn't know why the thought of the army made him  _feel_ , but it did.

One of the things that he did now that freaked Mandy the fuck out, was that he liked to read. He didn't tell her it was because he liked to fill his brain up with information so that he didn't have to think about the empty space that was his memories. It felt like there was a black hole in his mind, he wanted to fill it by any means necessary. So he read.

He was in the library when someone actually spoke to him, a frown on their face.

"Mickey, what the hell are you doing here?"

He didn't know the person standing in front of him, but he pretended that he did. He put that mask on that for a second he'd forgotten he had to wear. "Getting a book, what the fuck does it look like?" he asked, making himself scowl, partly because the words tasted strange on his tongue, the harshness of it alien.

The guy in front of him snorted, "Yeah, but can you actually read?"

"Fuck off," he muttered because he didn't know what else to say. He didn't know who he disliked more at that moment, the guy in front of him, or the guy that this stranger thought he was.

The guy rolled his eyes, "Come on, you have to admit it's weird."

Mickey just stared at him, because he didn't have to admit to anything and they both knew it. "Mick, are you fucking done yet?" Mandy appeared beside them, her expression bored as she leant against the bookcase playing with the hem of her too small skirt.

"I told you not to come," he said, rolling his eyes at her.

She didn't seem to be listening to him anymore. "Hey Lip," she said and her smile was definitely flirty.

The name didn't ring any bells in his head. "I'm going to book this out," he said and Mandy just waved him off, already completely engrossed in this new guy, Lip or whatever. Five minutes later, they were still flirting.

"You coming or staying?" he asked her.

"You going to buy me a McDonalds?" she countered, chewing her bottom lip and looking at him with wide pleading eyes.

He stared at her for a minute, "Are you going to steal my chips again?"

"Probably."

He shrugged, he'd been expecting that answer, "Kay then."

Mandy grinned and bounced forwards to peck the guy Lip on the cheek before bumping against Mickey as they moved towards the library door. The librarian told her to be quiet when she tripped up slightly and squealed, she swore at the librarian in response and Mickey thought it was highly likely that he wasn't going to be let back in again.


	5. Chapter 5

She made him go to a party because she said he didn't get out enough. She said it didn't matter since he didn't know any of the people there anyway, but she did a line of coke in their bathroom before they went because coke made Mickey act a lot more like the Mickey everyone knew.

He didn't really know what to do with himself when he got to the party, so he just leant against a wall smoking, a drink in his other hand as he watched everything going on around him. He could feel the coke running through his bloodstream and it made him practically itch to move, but he was too scared to, too scared of doing something that Mandy wouldn't approve of.

He chewed up his bottom lip and pushed away from the wall and went outside when some girl came to chat him up. He definitely knew that no matter who he was, no matter who people thought he was, he wouldn't want to have her flirt with him.

No, he didn't like her, he didn't like girls. He liked. . . what did he like?

He liked the feel of teeth in his shoulder, hands on his hips as a dick filled up his ass. He liked the smell of lime bodywash and a choked out moan when the person fucking him came. He liked pale skin under his hands. He liked freckles and soppy looks that he pretended not to notice. He liked breathless panting and fucks in random places. He liked it hard and fast and brutal and he didn't want to like it slow and meaningful, but he did anyway.

He didn't know how he knew that, he just did.

He knew that, but he hadn't even remembered his own name.

Mickey swore softly under his breath at the hand that the world had dealt him and tipped his head back against the outside wall of the house, listening to the shitty music and wishing that they were playing something else. He just didn't know what exactly.

_"After all the things you put me through, tell me why I'm still in love with you, why am I, why am I still waiting for your call. . ."_

_"Please stop singing!"_

_No please don't stop, I don't mean it, please don't ever stop._

_"Fuck off, Mick, I like to sing."_

_He rolled his eyes, "You like to, doesn't mean you fucking can."_

_"Like you could do any better."_

_Yes I could actually, he thought to himself, but instead those words came out of his mouth as, "And why the fuck would I want to sing some shitty song or whatever the fuck you were murdering just then."_

He didn't know what to make to the scenes that ran through his head, like lines of a play that he'd once learnt and was only now remembering. Except he couldn't put faces to the voices, or rather a face to the voice. It was always the same voice. It was always the same person, but Mickey didn't have anything other than meaningless words to go off.

"Get the fuck off me," he heard Mandy snarl and he was pushing away from the wall before he even really knew he was moving. It was like he was working on automatic, his teeth bared and his fists flying, connecting with flesh and bone. He heard something crunch when he slammed his forehead into some unfortunate guy's face – he thought unfortunate, but he didn't really care.

He didn't know why it felt good to have blood smeared across his knuckles. The idea of hurting someone, of wanting to hurt them more than anything else was a foreign feeling. It felt alien, but at the same time it felt so familiar that it hurt. It was like his mind couldn't remember anything, but his body knew exactly what it was supposed to be doing. He could have blamed it on the drugs in his system, but he didn't think he could have stopped even if he had tried.

A fist glanced off his jaw and he just laughed and spat blood out onto the floor, surprised actually that that hadn't really hurt at all. There had been enough power behind that punch for it to hurt. He thought maybe his head was used to taking hits like that.

"Mickey, just fucking leave it!"

Someone pulled on his arm, stopping him from throwing another punch and something inside of him seemed to recognise that voice even though he couldn't place it for a second. Mandy tugged at his arm again, trying to drag him away and he let her. He could have resisted, but Mandy was the one he trusted, he was the one he wanted to look after, so why the hell would he resist? It was like the need to fight was slowly ebbing out of him again.

"This party's bullshit anyway," Mandy said, flipping off a couple of people who were staring.

She linked her arm through Mickey's as she dragged him away, making sure he couldn't turn back around. Or maybe it was to help her stand up, because she was swaying a little bit. He wondered how much she'd had to drink.

"Why the hell can you remember how to hit shit, but you can't remember who I am?" she asked him when they'd gotten a safe distance from the party and there was nobody around.

He shrugged, "Instincts?"

"Probably," she muttered, snorting like she thought that was just typical. "Good to know you can still back me up in a fight though," she commented, bumping him with her hip and swaying slightly.

"Well I wouldn't be much of a brother if I didn't want to kill for you, would I?" he replied, scrubbing a hand through his hair and thumbing the letters on his knuckles. He had a habit of doing that now, like pressing his fingers against those permanent marks would bring back some memory of who he used to be.

He still wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to be that person anymore, but he thought he should try for Mandy's sake. He knew Mandy wanted him back sometimes. He knew this must be hard on her even if she pretended it wasn't. Mandy was good at pretending, he supposed he was too.

"Sit down there," she said, pointing to the couch when they walked into the house.

She kicked off her shoes, one of them flying out of sight and Mickey knew she was going to be screaming at him to find it next time she wanted to wear them. "What are you doing?" he asked, watching her stagger slightly into the kitchen, "And how much have you had to drink?"

"Not enough," she replied and he could hear the fridge opening and closing. She came back with a bag of frozen peas they both knew they were never going to eat. "You're cheek's starting to swell up a bit, unless you want to look like the Elephant Man in the morning, put this on your face."

He winced when the cold surface touched his face and she laughed at him. "Little bit late to become a pussy now," she muttered and he pulled a face at her, except actually, that sort of hurt. He let his features smooth out again.

"Did I used to fight a lot?" he asked her, not really knowing why.

Mandy just shrugged, "We all did, it's sort of in our blood."

He didn't know how he felt about that. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about the fact that his body could remember how to be a thug but his brain hadn't quite remembered that part yet. He wondered if he was ever going to remember, or if he was going to be stuck with the random words flitting through his brain from the past and the memories he was building now.

He didn't know if that would be so bad. He thought sometimes maybe not. Then he felt guilty, because he knew he should be trying harder to get himself back. Except, he didn't know how to do that.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to warn you, this is probably THE most random chapter I will ever write. My excuse, I was listening to the song and it kind of made me think of Mickey. Tip: listen to You're gonna go far kid by The Offspring while reading this, it'll make more sense then! Or at the very least you'll get the tune. Enjoy the fruits of my randomness. . .

He turned the volume up about as loud as his crappy stereo would allow.

"Slowly out of line and drifting closer in your sights; so play it out I'm wide awake. It's a scene about me!"

He jumped onto his bed and for some reason started pretending to box.

"There's something in your way and now someone is gonna pay and if you can't get what you want, well it's all because of me!"

He leapt off the bed and landed with a loud thump, sliding into the living room on his knees, which earned him an incredulous look from Mandy that he chose to ignore. "Now dance fucker dance, Man I never had a chance. And no one even knew, it was really only you."

Mandy laughed at him and raised her eyebrows, "And now you'll lead the way, show the light of day, nice work you did, you're gonna go far kid. Trust deceived!"

He started drumming on the back of Mandy's head with his hands.

"With a thousand lies and a good disguise, hit 'em right between the eyes. Hit 'em right between the eyes."

She twisted away and hit him with the pillow, scrambling over the back of the sofa and no doubt trying to get him into a headlock. He danced away from her, laughing while he sang – shouted at the top of his voice, who the fuck cared – "When you walk away, nothing more to say, see the lightening in your eyes. See 'em running for their lives."

Mandy squealed when he tossed her over his shoulder, spinning her around in a circle and ignoring the fists that pounded into his back. He kept spinning her throughout the entire guitar solo part, laughing when she started screaming, "No, Mick, put me down, I'm gonna fucking puke, seriously, I'm gonna puke!"

He put her down then, grinning like an idiot when the chorus came back on and she actually sang with his this time. Although maybe it was just them screaming at each other, it didn't really matter. "Now dance, fucker dance, he never had a chance. And no one even knew, it was really only you. So dance fucker dance, I never had a chance, it was really only you."

Mandy got him in a headlock then, stopping him from belting out the last part of the song, but he didn't mind, he was out of breath anyway. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she asked him, rolling her eyes and letting him go when they fell onto the couch.

He laughed, sprawling out across the couch and sticking his feet in her lap. She didn't complain, just smirked at him.

"I like that song," he replied breathlessly, "I think it's my favourite song."

She snorted, "And that was worth all that fucking random dancing." She gave him what he supposed was meant to be a meaningful look. "Hey, maybe you are gay after all!"

He lazily swatted at her with a pillow again, but couldn't be bothered to put much effort behind the hit. She snatched the pillow off of him and jammed it behind her head as she twisted so that they were facing each other.

"I don't actually know, I just heard the song and it put me in a good mood," he said, shrugging and chewing his bottom lip as he stared up at the ceiling. Sometimes he didn't understand himself, but he thought he was allowed to let go once in a while.

Mandy smirked at him, he knew that without even looking, "You can tell you're not the same anymore, you never would have been caught dead doing that."

He didn't know what to make of that tone, but when he looked at her she was smiling. "What?" he asked.

"I'm starting to kind of like this new you," she admitted, looking a little guilty for saying that, like she was betraying her brother or something, "You're kind of fun, not that you weren't fun before, but it's just different."

He just grinned because he didn't know how to respond to that.

"You want some eggs?" she asked him suddenly, responding to the slight awkwardness in the air.

"Sure," he replied, patting his stomach, "Dancing takes it out of you, you know!"

Mandy snorted. "Yeah, I think we need to work on your dancing skills actually," she muttered as she got up, "But you're singing ain't half bad."

"I know," he replied, "I gots some mad skills me."

She rolled her eyes at him and swatted at the back of his head, "That voice is stupid."

"So sue me."

He knew if he had been the other him, he would have sworn at her there. Maybe she'd been expecting it. He just couldn't bring himself to be rude in a moment that felt like they were actually connecting or something. He thought this was how siblings were supposed to be, acting stupid together for no reason whatsoever.

_He leant over and turned up the volume of the music in case someone came home and heard them. "So dance fucker dance, I never had a chance, it was really only you."_

_Mickey couldn't help it, he scowled because otherwise he would smile. "Will you stop fucking singing, Jesus?"_

_"Fuck off, Mick, it's my favourite song."_

_"Aren't you supposed to like something faggy like Dancing Queen or something?" Mickey retorted, kneeling on the bed and pulling his shirt over his head._

_"Aren't you?" he retorted, "You're just as gay as me."_

_Mickey wanted to hit him for that one. He didn't know why he didn't. "Fuck off."_


	7. Chapter 7

He didn't know what he was supposed to think when he met that guy from the library, Lip walking out of Mandy's bedroom one morning. He could hear Mandy still snoring in her bed and scowled a little because this guy better not have been trying to sneak out or some shit like that.

"Relax, I just gotta piss," the guy, Lip said, holding up his hands like he could read Mickey's fucking mind or something. No, if he could, he wouldn't be looking at him in that wary sort of way, because he'd be able to realise that Mickey's thoughts had turned away from inflicting pain and to food as soon as he'd offered up a reasonable explanation.

"Whatever," he muttered, "You want a coffee?"

Lip looked surprised he was offering, but said yes anyway. "Just so long as you don't spit in it or something," he added before heading into Mickey's room, which unfortunately was the only way through to the bathroom. That didn't annoy him so much since it was only him and Mandy in the house, but he thought it probably would have annoyed him before.

He made coffee and in the end when his stomach started growled, stuck some bread in the toaster as well. He made three cups of coffee and fixed one up the way he knew Mandy liked it. Lip frowned at him when he took it into Mandy's room and put it on the floor next to her. Of course, this Lip guy wouldn't know that this was a habit that Mickey had sort of developed. It made him feel like he was thanking her for being so nice to him, for looking after him.

It made him feel a little stupid and hurt his pride a bit to think that he needed looking after, but still it was partly true. He'd probably still be stuck in the hospital if it wasn't for Mandy.

"I don't know how you have it," he said, pointing to the coffee on the side and then taking a sip of his own.

He and Mandy practically lived on the stuff.

While Lip fixed up his own coffee, Mickey settled back against the counter and ate his toast, watching the guy. He was trying to work out if he could remember him at all, if he could get any inkling of how they knew each other. Because they obviously did.

"Mandy says you got a job at a construction site," Lip said, sitting on the counter opposite from Mickey, obviously trying to be polite, "She's really proud of you, talks about you all the time now."

He didn't like the look of surprise on Lip's face when he smiled. Wouldn't the old him have smiled at something like that? Wasn't it a good thing to hear that Mandy was proud of him? He thought he was. The more he found out about the old him, the more he thought the guy had a few wires crossed in his head. Maybe the amnesia was simply those wires uncrossing.

"You and my sister a thing then?" he asked, because he didn't know how he was supposed to respond to that and he thought maybe even the old him would have cared about what the hell was going on in his sister's love life.

"Why the hell do you care?" Mandy asked before Lip could reply, wandering in looking as attractive as ever – not – with her hair matted at the back and her make-up smudged under her eyes. She snatched his toast out of his hand and he didn't complain, he'd been expecting that. "Thanks for the coffee," she muttered low enough so that Lip couldn't hear her, raising it to her lips once she'd finished his toast and settling against the counter beside him.

He shrugged at her question, "Want to know who to kill if I find you crying, don't I?"

That sounded like something the old him would maybe say. He thought it probably was judging by Lip didn't look surprised to hear him say that at all. "Dude, she'd kill me before you even got the chance," he said after a minute, taking a gulp of his coffee.

Mickey shrugged again, "I'd still kill you."

Mandy was all he had and he already knew he hated to see her cry.

"You're an idiot," Mandy muttered, bumping against him with her shoulder, but she was smiling and he knew she liked hearing him say shit like that. Just like he kind of liked hearing that she was proud of him.

"When's my soldier boy coming back anyway?" Mandy asked suddenly, like she'd only just realised she hadn't asked that already. She looked a little guilty for a moment that she hadn't remembered sooner, but her features smoothing out in a heartbeat.

Mandy was good at pretending. Just like Mickey. It was all about the pretence it seemed sometimes.

He didn't know why the mention of soldiers made his heart stutter in his chest, but it did.

The guy, Lip grinned, "Oh, so he's still yours then?"

"Course," Mandy said like it was obvious. Mickey didn't know what they were talking about, but he tried to make it look like he did. And when that failed, he just kept his expression perfectly blank.

Lip smirked, but obviously not at Mickey, so that was alright.

"He's back in about a month," Lip said, "That was the deal last time I spoke to him anyway, but he said it could change."

"How long's it going to be for?" Mandy asked, her eyes practically shining and Mickey didn't know if that was because she was about to cry or if that was out of happiness.

He didn't know why this conversation was making him fidget, but it was. He took a large mouthful of coffee and didn't even wince when it scalded his throat.

Lip shrugged, "Not that long, but it'll be just good to see him."

There was a word in Mickey's brain, a name that he couldn't quite grasp. He kept trying to grab a hold of it, but it was like smoke, slipping out of reach every time he got anywhere near. Why was he thinking of fire?  _Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. . ._ "Ian," he said aloud and Lip frowned at him.

"No shit," he looked a little disgusted at Mickey for a moment.

But Mickey didn't really have time to give a shit because Mandy was suddenly in front of him, her eyes wide as she stared at him. He offered her a weak smile and she squealed and threw her arms around his neck. He was guessing from that reaction that he'd finally remembered something correctly. And he had remembered, because he hadn't been told that before.

Ian the soldier.  _Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian_.

He wondered if more things would come if he kept chanting the name to himself in his head. He figured it was worth a try.

Lip was just looking at them like they'd actually lost their ever loving minds, but Mickey didn't give a shit. He was too pleased with himself for having remembered something and he was happy that he'd made Mandy happy, but he couldn't explain the twist in his gut every time he thought that name,  _Ian_.

_Who was Ian?_

"Do I get ribs tonight then?" he asked when Mandy finally let go of his neck, which he was sort of glad about because she'd been making it difficult for him to breathe. Not that he would have ruined the little happy moment by saying that though.

Mandy just snorted and picked her coffee back up. He pretended he didn't see the tears in her eyes.

 


	8. Chapter 8

He knew the day Ian came back, because Mandy tripped out of her room looking twice as made up as usual. She was obviously making an extra special effort, like doing that would make this guy stay or something. Mickey still hadn't remember anything more than a name, but the colour red kept flitting through his mind like it was burned into the back of his eyelids, he didn't know what that was supposed to mean.

"You planning on flashing the entire neighbourhood?" he asked her as she danced forwards and did a twirl in what he knew was a new mini skirt, "Please go put some trousers on."

"Fuck off, no, I look cute," she said playing with the hem of her skirt.

He rolled his eyes, "Whatever."

"Come pick me up at like two yeah?" she asked, putting more mascara on which he thought was stupid. She scribbled something down on a piece of paper. "There's not enough room to stay over and I don't really wanna get fucking raped walking home or something shit."

"Wouldn't happen if you put some trousers on," he retorted, but took the paper that held and address and promised to be there at two to pick her up. He knew she was probably going to be passed out by then anyway.

It was only seven, so he had seven hours to kill, which he wasn't really looking forwards to. He found that he wasn't good at killing time when he was waiting for something. And why did he feel like he was waiting for the biggest thing of all? He didn't know. . . it was only picking Mandy up from a party. So why was he sort of nervous and sort of excited all at the same time?

He showered, ate, picked up the random clothes dotted around the house that were dirty and put them in the wash. He watched some pointless TV, played videogames, tried and failed to sleep for a few hours. He played with Bert for a little while until the mouse seemed to get bored of him. He read a book, but couldn't concentrate and in the end he just lay staring up at the ceiling with a cigarette trapped between his fingers, burning out and dropping ash onto the floor. He wasn't even smoking it, he just needed something to hold.

The sound of a gunshot screamed through his mind and he jumped involuntarily, even though he knew it was all in his head, he still jumped. His fingers automatically sought out the scar on his thigh, he knew where it was even through his jeans.

_"Hey, hey look at me!"_

_The hands on his thigh seemed to burn more than the wound did, because he could feel that touch somewhere deep inside of himself, like his soul was memorising it._

_"You fucking suck!" he screamed at the person who'd shot him, because otherwise he was going to scream the words in his head. His insides were freaking out and not about being shot, but about having a gun still pointed at the only person he gave a shit about who wasn't blood._

_He slotted his fingers over those on his thigh, gripped tight, held on like if he didn't, the world was going to drop out from underneath him._

He rubbed his eyes, not knowing how he was supposed to make sense of everything in his head. Sometimes he wasn't sure he wanted to. This wasn't one of these moments. He wanted to remember the guy that his thoughts clung to, he wanted to remember the guy his heart kept trying to provide the knowledge about. He could feel the ache of his feelings deep inside of his chest and that was weird, because he didn't know anything about the guy other than what his fleeting memories provided him with.

Sometimes they seemed too surreal to be memories. But they had to be, didn't they.

_"I- I miss you."_

_No, he couldn't hear that. He couldn't hear that because he didn't know how to deal with that. People didn't miss him, people didn't care about him. He couldn't say it back, his tongue didn't know how to shape those words. He knew they'd taste weird on his tongue, it was like a foreign language. He didn't know how to say stuff like that, he didn't know how to do any of this._

_"Say that again and I'll rip your tongue out your head."_

_He knew how to do that. He knew how to ruin things. He knew how to be a dick. He knew how to pretend_.

Sometimes he wanted to go back in time and slap the old him around the back of the head. Sometimes the things he remembered made him feel sick, because he knew the feelings in his chest now had been there then. And with those feelings, he didn't know how anybody could possibly deny anything. Hadn't it been written all over his face? Did the guy know how he felt? How much he cared? Did this guy know that Mickey had only been hiding behind those harsh words?

Did he? Did he? Did he?

He thought probably not.

_"Done is done! What do you think we're boyfriend and girlfriend here? You're nothing but a warm mouth to me?"_

_No, no, no, no, NO!_

_I don't mean it, you have to know I don't mean it. Make me take it back! Please make me take it back! I swear I don't mean it! Don't look at me like that! Don't cry, please don't cry. Fuck, please don't cry! I didn't mean it, you have to know I didn't mean it._

_He didn't know how to take it back, his mouth wouldn't let him. Mickey didn't know how to tell the truth, he didn't know how to put himself out there. He only knew how to lie and how to pretend and how to ruin the only good things that he had ever had._

Mickey punched the wall, wincing at the pain that slithered through his hand. He felt like maybe he deserved that though. The old him was an idiot, a liar, a pretender.  _Just like him now_. He wanted to remember, he wanted to know who that guy was so that he could find him, so he could go and apologise for those words, for that person who had said those things that he didn't mean.

He could feel it like an illness, bubbling up inside of him. It burned, it fucking hurt to think about what he'd said. He couldn't remember why he'd said them, who he'd said them to, but it still hurt. It hurt like nothing else he could imagine. Because this sort of pain couldn't be stitched up, it couldn't be pushed aside, it wouldn't heal.

It definitely wouldn't heal because he couldn't even remember!

 _Fuck_ , he'd never wanted to remember so badly in his entire life.

He rolled off the bed and walked into the kitchen, pressing that bag of peas from the freezer against his injured hand, cradling it against his chest. He just sat there, feeling the cold start to set into his hand, make it seize up slightly, but he didn't care in the slightest. He just sat there and hated the old him that he couldn't remember and he hated the new him a little bit as well for no reason at all.

He hated everything.

He hated that he couldn't remember.

He'd never really wanted to remember before. But he wanted to remember now. He felt like it was the least this mystery guy who made his heart clench inside of his chest deserved.  _Why can I remember Mandy's friend's name, but I can't remember his?_

He threw the bag of peas back into the freezer when he saw the clock ticking closer to two a.m. He could be a little bit early, Mandy would probably be too pissed to even really notice the time anyway. He found a kind of grubby looking bandage in the bathroom and wound it around his hand to try and see if that helped the pain a little. He thought maybe it was broken, he didn't know, he didn't care. He couldn't see past the pain in his chest.

Nobody was around as he walked to the address Mandy had given him, the one he'd memorised earlier because he'd been bored and couldn't think of anything else to do. It was weird, his feet seemed to move of their own accord, he didn't even have to think about it. He supposed he'd probably been to this house before. It wasn't far away. It was only a couple of blocks over.

He could hear music coming from inside, could see people moving about through the windows. But he just stood there on the other side of the road, watching like some sort of creepy stalker. He felt like an idiot, but he had a few minutes until he'd told Mandy he'd pick her up and he didn't want to move yet. He didn't know why, but he didn't want to move.

He kept his injured hand cradled against his chest, stamped his feet occasionally to try and ward off the chill that was creeping into his bones. The cold helped the pain in his hand a little though, maybe that was why he was standing there. He knew he was just lying to himself thinking that, but hey, he was good at lying. He was even better at pretending.

When two people came crashing out of the front door, it took him a minute to realise that one of them was his sister. He was sort of proud that she seemed to have the upper hand, punching the blonde girl she landed on top of in the face before the girl probably knew what the hell had hit her. More people came out of the house, watching the fight that was too brutal to really be a cat fight. He didn't know why it amused him, he knew he should be going forwards to help Mandy out or something, but he still didn't move.

"You fucking whore!" Mandy spat – or rather screamed – as the blonde girl slapped her across the face. Mickey didn't know why that amused him, that this girl would slap when his sister punched. But it did.

People were trying to go in and break it up, were trying to drag them apart, but Mandy wasn't having any of it. She hung on to the blonde girl's hair, twisting her head back and making her cry out. Mickey knew his sister was smiling at that sound.

He didn't know when he'd moved, when he'd crossed the road, but nobody noticed him until he stood next to them with the hosepipe in his hands. He saw Lip out of the corner of his eye, saw him smirk and then he twisted the end and aimed the freezing cold jet of water at his sister.

She swore loudly and let go of the other girl instantly, who also squealed in a really girlish way.

"Mickey, what the fuck!" Mandy screamed at him, climbing to her feet and slamming her hands into his chest. He turned off the water and dropped the house pipe, dancing back and laughing because he didn't know what else to do and Mandy did look sort of funny standing there like a drowned rat.

He shrugged, "First thing I thought of."

"You could have just said, stop, you dickhead!" she crossed her arms over her chest and shivered and automatically he shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her. The chill felt pretty good on his throbbing hand anyway.

She didn't say anything as she pulled it on and wrapped it around her tightly.

"At least it sobered you up," he said, smirking a little when she flipped him off.

"Is it two already?" she asked, looking down at her wrist even though she knew full well she never wore a watch.

He nodded, "Yepp."

"Well damn," she muttered and then shivered again and rubbed her arms, "I can't believe you fucking used the hose pipe on me, if I have the flu I'll fucking cut you while you sleep?"

He rolled his eyes, "No, you'll just drive me mad making me look after you."

Which of course he'd do anyway, but that went without saying.

"What the hell happened to your hand?" she asked him suddenly, noticing the way he was keeping it tucked into his side and no doubt spotting the bandage as well, "It was fine when I left!"

He shrugged, "Punched a wall."

"Why?"

He didn't know why he didn't want to tell her the full story, the real answer. Maybe because he didn't even really know the full story himself, he didn't know how to explain it so that it would make sense. So he just said, "Remembered something I didn't want to."

Her face softened instantly and she looked like she wanted to hug him, but she didn't.

"Just let me go get my shoes," she said, "Then we'll go get high."

He snorted, "That's your answer for everything." It wasn't really a bad solution to the problem though. It would at least make him relax for a while and it'd definitely dull the pain in his hand.

She touched his arm briefly as she jogged past him into the house.

He noticed the blonde girl she'd been fighting with had disappeared, he thought that was probably for the best. He fidgeted a little, unnerved about the fact that he was no surrounded by people he didn't know. He only knew Lip and even then, that was barely. He wondered if the old him had known these people.

He tried not to look at them as he stood there, but that made it sort of difficult when Lip started talking to him. He was a little drunk and more than a little high, Mickey could tell. He was sort of jealous actually. "Best way to break up a cat fight, ever, seriously!" he said, grinning at Mickey like an idiot.

Mickey supposed that was probably because of the weed.

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered, scratching the back of his neck with his good hand and wondering how long it was taking Mandy to get some fucking shoes. A tall redhead met his eyes, but he looked away quickly. He didn't want to encourage anyone to talk to him and the guy was pretty fucking hot and Mickey also didn't want to do anything that would give away the fact he wasn't straight.

"Mick!" Mandy shouted from the steps in front of the front door of the house, she had one shoe dangling from her hand, "I lost a shoe!"

He groaned and gave her an exasperated look.

"And what am I supposed to do about that?" he asked, scratching a random itch that appeared on his thigh, right over his scar.

"Carry me."

He glared at her, "Mandy, I think I broke my hand, I can't carry you!"

She rolled her eyes, "Stop being such a pussy."

Knowing better than to argue with her too much, because they both knew that he was going to end up carrying her anyway, he walked over to her and hooked his good arm under her knees, putting his bad one under her back and lifting her up. And fuck it hurt, but he gritted his teeth and she wrapped an arm around the back of his neck to take some of the weight off of him, even though that made it sort of worse because she was strangling him a little bit.

"Love you Mickey," she said, seeming a little drunk again.

He felt her shiver and felt slightly guilty about using the hose on her, but then she was making him carry her home so he thought that evened it out. She was cold and he was in pain, they were even.

"Yeah," he muttered, because he didn't know what else to say and he was having to keep his teeth mashed together because otherwise he thought he might moan in pain.

"Bye Ian," Mandy shouted, waving at someone over his shoulder and Mickey half turned to look at the redhead who was feebly waving back. There was a strange expression on his face that Mickey didn't have the time to decipher.

He didn't know why he felt guilty for the guy's face not really meaning anything to him. Maybe it was because he thought it should have since this guy, Ian was the only thing he'd really remembered.


	9. Chapter 9

When someone knocked on the front door, Mickey swore under his breath and rolled out of bed. He knew Mandy would still be passed out and even if she wasn't she'd be far too hung over to bother answering the door. He kept his injured hand cradled against his stomach as he walked out of his room. He was only in his boxers and he knew he probably looked like crap since his hair stuck up at the back and he didn't smell all that great, but he wasn't really expecting it to be anybody important at the door.

And maybe it wasn't, because he couldn't remember, but something inside of him told him the person standing there was important.

He was tall, that was the first thing Mickey noticed. Maybe that was because Mickey was short, he didn't know. His red hair was cropped quite short in a way that was probably army regulation. He had a splattering of freckles across his nose and cheekbones and wide brown eyes that sort of made him think of a deer, but he didn't know why. He was hot, or maybe handsome was more accurate. Mickey didn't know, he wasn't that great with vocabulary. All he knew was that this guy was easily  _the_  most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and even without being able to remember everything he'd ever seen, Mickey knew that.

"Mandy's not awake yet," he blurted out because that was the first thing he could think to say and his brain was shutting down with this guy staring at him like he was. It was like he was cataloguing everything about Mickey at the same time as Mickey was doing the same to him.

A smile broke out across this guy's face – Ian, his name was Ian – and Mickey had to stop himself from smiling back because he remembered that he didn't do that. He sort of hated that he didn't do that.

"That's okay," the guy said, "I can wake her up if you like?"

Mickey just shrugged, figuring this guy might as well come in. Even if the old him was rude, he didn't want to be. Not to this guy. He didn't know why. The sound of his voice triggered something inside of Mickey's head, but he couldn't really think what. He couldn't remember. Typically, he couldn't remember.

What could he remember these days?

"How's the hand?" he asked as he stepped into the house behind Mickey.

Mickey shrugged, "Probably broken, but I'll live."

"You could go to the hospital and make sure."

He couldn't help it, he snorted. "We're only just getting close to paying off the last set of bills," he muttered and ran his good hand through his hair as he wandered through into the kitchen, hearing the front door shut behind him. Awkwardly he got a glass of water and a box of painkillers out of one of the kitchen cabinets and he knew that this guy was watching him as he went into Mandy's room.

She was flat out in bed, wearing one of his old shirts and he hoped to God underwear. The covers were kicked down towards the bottom of the bed and her hair was matted and tangled, like she'd been tossing about in her sleep. He smirked at the sight of dried drool on her cheek. His sister really wasn't attractive when she slept.

"Mandy."

He crouched down beside her bed and put the water on the floor. He brushed her hair back from her face and smiled when she mumbled and groaned, her eyes flickering open and then snapping back shut in response to the light in the room. "Take these," he said, keeping his voice quiet and handed her a couple of pills.

She put them in her mouth and reached blindly for the glass of water. He handed it to her.

"Thanks, Mick," she muttered and he cringed because her breath hit him in the face and it was disgusting.

"No problem," he replied, "You think you can stomach food?"

She was kind of a pasty colour, but he knew it would be better if she actually got some food down her. He didn't think she'd throw up. Mandy was more the type to throw up on the night and then just feel like crap the morning after. She pulled a face, still keeping her eyes closed, "Probably."

"I'll make you some toast," he said, standing up and wincing when his knees cracked, "By the way, your friend Ian's here." He was actually standing in the doorway to Mandy's room, frowning, but Mickey didn't think she needed to know those specifics. He shooed Ian out of his sister's room because he'd be damned if he was letting the guy watch his sister get up. Especially since he'd realised that no, she wasn't actually wearing any underwear.

"You want anything?" he asked Ian when he was aware that the guy was standing behind him, watching as he moved about the kitchen. It was kind of unnerving and sort of made Mickey wish he had some more clothes on, but he thought it would look even weirder if he ran off to put some clothes on.

From the look on Ian's face, he thought maybe him offering to make him food like that was strange, but he couldn't help it. The situation was turning awkward and he needed something to do with himself.

"Um, no, I'm fine thanks," he said, chewing his bottom lip and Mickey had to look away because the sight of those lips were making his mouth water. He didn't know why, he put it down to the fact that the guy was gorgeous.

He thought that Mandy needed to make friends more often.

He buttered Mandy's toast and left it on the side next to a cup of coffee, not really wanting to wander in and see her getting changed. She had no boundaries about walking into his room, but it didn't quite go both ways.

When he didn't have any other excuse not to, he turned around and settled against the counter with his coffee mug clasped in his good hand. Ian just stood there hovering in the doorway to the kitchen, the sunlight making his hair practically glow.

Mickey met his gaze and the guy just seemed to snap. "We're really fucking doing this?" he demanded, because his tone was too harsh for it to be a question, "You're really going to stand there and pretend?"

He frowned, he couldn't help it. He didn't have a clue what this guy was on about. "What?"

"You know what,  _fuck you_!" Ian yelled at him and then turned around and stormed out rather abruptly.

When Mandy walked into the room, he just shrugged in the face of her frown, "Don't look at me, I have no clue what the hell that was all about." He took a sip of coffee and stared at the place where Ian had been standing not long before. "Did I do something to piss him off when I was, you know, still  _me_?" he asked.

Mandy frowned a little and bit into her toast. The expression on her face said that she was far too hung over to be thinking too hard about anything. "No clue," she admitted, "I don't even think you two really talked, you only saw him when he was here with me or at work, but I don't think you ever did anything more than scowl at him at work."

"We worked together?"

"Yeah at the Kash and Grab," she said through a mouthful of toast, "The army probably just stressed him out a little bit, don't worry about it."

Mickey didn't too much, because he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to be worrying about. Still, there was the thought nagging at the back of his mind that maybe Mandy wasn't right about what she'd just told him. Maybe there was more to it than the war stressing Ian out.  _Maybe._


	10. Chapter 10

He heard Mandy answer the front door, heard her greet the person and he just rolled over onto his front and concentrated on trying to get a little more sleep. And then someone was grabbing him by the back of his shirt and he was being thrown across the room. A fist connected with his face and he heard Mandy scream and he thought:  _this is it, someone's found out I'm gay._

"You fucking piece of shit!"

He recognised that voice, that was the voice of the guy who fucked Mandy sometimes, Lip. Yeah that was Lip's voice. Why the fuck was Lip trying to kill him? The guy hadn't struck him as being homophobic. But hey, he guessed anybody could be.

At first he was too dazed to fight back and then he didn't even have to because Mandy was there and in true Milkovich style had Lip in a headlock. She pulled him away from Mickey, pushed him into a wall and then let go, putting herself between Lip and her brother.

"Mick, you okay?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of Lip who was slumped against the opposite wall, obviously trying to work out what the fuck had just happened.

Mickey rubbed his eyes and slowly clambered up onto his feet. His hand was throbbing again and he tucked it into his side protectively. Still, he didn't like the fact that Mandy was the one standing between him and Lip. He didn't like the idea of anybody hurting her, he didn't want her to put herself in the way for him.

"I'm alright," he said, dabbing at the blood running from his nose with the bottom of his shirt.

"Lip, what the actual fuck?" Mandy shouted at Lip and Mickey could practically taste her anger. He was just confused. "Mickey's not done shit to you, why the fuck did you hit him?"

Mickey kind of liked the fact that he wasn't the only one that was confused.

Lip sneered, which looked kind of weird because usually he was quite a smiley guy from what Mickey could gather. He didn't really know him. "She doesn't have a fucking clue does she?" he asked, obviously looking at Mickey, not really talking to Mandy at all, "Does he really mean that little? You really know how to make someone feel like shit, don't you Mickey, you made him think he was nothing!"

And he honestly had no clue what Lip was on about, so Mickey just stood there and stared. He just waited because he knew Lip was going to say something eventually. The guy looked like he was about to snap.

"Lip, what the hell are you talking about?" Mandy asked, backing up until she was closer to Mickey, her fists clenched. And Mickey knew she'd protect him, even if he didn't really need it. "I don't know what the fuck you're on, but Mickey hasn't done anything."

He loved her belief in him, loved even more that it wasn't misplaced.

Lip snorted. "Why don't you tell her Mickey?" he asked, "She already knows your gay, would it really matter that much to tell her? Or are you just that ashamed of him? Are you just that much of a coward?"

"Dude, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," Mickey said, because the way that Lip was looking at him, like he'd happily kill Mickey was kind of unnerving. The old him probably would have just laughed, but it was freaking him out.

"Bullshit!" Lip shouted at him, although maybe it was more of a scream, "You know exactly what I'm talking about!"

Mickey flinched, he couldn't help it.

"Well I don't," Mandy said, her fists clenching and unclenching down by her sides, "So how about you stop fucking screaming at my brother and tell me what the fuck is wrong!"

Lip smirked, like he was going to enjoy this. Like he thought what he had to say was going to bring Mickey's world crashing down. Maybe it was. "Mickey's never told you he was fucking Ian, did he?" Lip asked, talking to Mandy but looking at Mickey with hatred burning in his eyes. Mickey had never thought it was possible to hate someone as much as Lip apparently hated him. "That he had Ian convinced what they had was love because Mickey got shot for him and threatened to kill for him and made Ian think he kind of liked having him around." Lip cracked his knuckles and when neither of the Milkovich's said anything, Lip carried on talking. "He made Ian think that maybe he meant something and then Ian comes back and Mickey pretends like he doesn't even fucking know him, like none of it even happened."

Ian,  _it was Ian._

How had he not realised? He'd been searching the memories he didn't have access to for a name, looking for some kind of answer as to who he could apologise to. He'd been trying to remember so hard who the guy was that he was in love with. He'd been trying to remember a name. And he'd already remembered. It had been the only thing he'd remembered and he hadn't even realised what that name meant.  _How_   _much_  it meant.

Mandy turned and looked at him, her eyes wide and her expression sort of stunned, but she understood. She didn't blame him because she understood. She knew it wasn't his fault. She knew he didn't remember. She knew that.

"I– "

He didn't know what he was even trying to say.

"It's alright," she said, grabbing him up into a hug, pulling him against her and falling with him as his knees buckled. He felt sick. He didn't know why he felt sick, but he felt sick. Maybe it was the thought of having upset Ian. Or maybe it was because he felt like something was finally slotting into place

"Did Ian tell you that Dad tried to kill him? That Mickey was in a coma for two weeks?" Mandy asked, staring at Lip as though daring him to say a word while she was speaking, "Did he tell you that they had to operate on Mickey's brain to get the swelling down?"

Lip shook his head, no.

"And Ian couldn't have told you what happened afterwards anyway, because he doesn't know," Mandy continued, like she didn't know how to stop. But Mickey didn't care. "You wouldn't know that when Mickey woke up he didn't know where he was or who he was, who the hell  _I_  was! You wouldn't know that he's completely different and that I've had to teach him how to be a dick, how to act like the Mickey everyone knows just to stop them from finding out. Because they'd take him back to the hospital and they'd all find out why our Dad tried to kill him and I  _refuse_  to lose my brother again to some homophobic prick on a street corner."

Her fingers dug hard into Mickey's shoulder as she kept a tight hold of him, like she was afraid he'd suddenly disappear if she didn't hold on.

"So don't come here and fucking yell at him for shit he can't even remember," she said, "Because you don't know shit Lip, none of you know shit about what we've been through."

Lip was staring at them both, looking sort of stunned, but also looking like he was searching for some trace of a lie in their eyes. It seemed to be when she realised that Lip didn't completely believe her that Mandy decided to turn her back on him completely, to just pretend that he wasn't there.

"You okay?" she asked him, staring into his face and he could see the tears in her eyes that she was refusing to let fall.

He nodded sort of numbly. "Are you mad at me?" he asked her, because he had to know that. He had to make sure they were okay, Mandy was the only thing that he had. He couldn't lose her over something he hardly even remembered, he  _couldn't._

She offered him a weak smile, like she thought it was typical that would be what he was worrying about even when he had a bloody nose and a split lip and his hand was hurting like a son of a bitch. "Well, I didn't really see that one coming," she admitted after a minute, "But it does sort of make sense, why he used to put up with your dirty ass and why you never hit him for eating the last pizza bagel."

"He was there when I got shot, wasn't he?" Mickey asked numbly and Mandy looked at him in surprise.

She thought about it for a minute and then nodded, "Yeah, I guess he probably was since he worked at the Kash and Grab, why, you remember that?"

He shrugged, "Just his voice, he kept telling me to look at him and I remember hating the fact that he was there in between me and a gun, I remember thinking that it should be the other way around. I remember wanting to protect him," he explained, not sure if he was doing a good job of explaining or not, "But there were never faces, it was never a completely memory, I just remember words and thoughts, but didn't have a clue who I was remembering."

For some reason she smiled and when she saw him frowning, she laughed, "Sorry, I'm just having a hard time imagining the old you actually giving a shit about someone who wasn't family."

He smiled because he knew she didn't mean that as an insult. And how could it really insult him anyway? He wasn't that person anymore. Maybe he'd remember again at some point; but he knew he'd never be exactly the same. He didn't even think he wanted to be.

"Holy shit, you're not joking," Lip said, drawing their attention back to him. He was standing there, rubbing his knuckles of one hand and staring at them with wide eyes. "You really can't remember?"

Mickey shook his head, "No," he admitted, "And I'm sorry about upsetting Ian, you have to know I didn't mean to, I just had no idea that we were like. . .  _that_."

Lip's mouth opened and closed for a minute and then he ran his hands through his hair, "Holy fuck, Mickey Milkovich just apologised." He looked like this was a lot to take in, it probably was if Mickey was being completely honest. "So wait, let me get this right, you couldn't even remember who you were?"

He shook his head, feeling weird sitting there on the floor with Mandy, but he didn't really want to get up. It solved the problem when Lip sank down onto the floor as well. "I only really know what Mandy's told me," he said, "And I remember bits of stuff with Ian, but I didn't realise it was Ian until now."

"You remembered Ian's name though," Mandy put in.

And yet again, something seemed to click in Lip's mind, they could see it in his eyes. "Fuck, that was when you were acting all weird in the kitchen," he said and they nodded, "I just thought you were being a dick and forgetting about Ian and shit."

Mickey didn't bother pointing out that  _technically_  he had forgotten about Ian.

"Sorry I punched you," Lip said eventually when the silence started to become uncomfortable, "But you're really got at pretending to be the Mickey that we all knew."

He just shrugged. He already knew he was good at pretending. Sometimes it felt like the only thing he did. "Not your fault," he muttered, "I just don't really want to get my head kicked in for liking blokes, you know?"

Lip offered him a weak, dazed sort of smile, "Yeah, I get that."


	11. Chapter 11

Lip became something of a permanent fixture after that. He promised not to tell anybody about Mickey's amnesia. And he said he wouldn't tell Ian because it would only distract him and the guy didn't need to be distracted over in a warzone. Mandy frowned at that, but Mickey understood.

He sort of liked having Lip around. Liked the added masculinity in the house. He liked the fact that he could cook a little better than Mandy and that he liked to talk about intelligent things. He liked the weed he brought, liked the fact he chipped in to the bills without being asked. He liked that having Lip there made the house feel a little less empty and a little more like a home.

When Lip proposed, Mandy asked Mickey what he thought before she answered. He told her that he thought she should go for it because their kids would be geniuses and they wouldn't look half bad either. She'd laughed and said that meant he had to walk her down the aisle, but he just shrugged and told her that he'd be offended if she didn't make him anyway.

He was slowly starting to remember what it was like to be Mickey Milkovich.

He remembered how it felt to have your fingers broken and how it felt to break someone's kneecaps in return. He remembered how it felt to be shot in the leg and he remembered the words he'd said to lead up to that. He remembered kicking some guy's head in because he'd upset Mandy. He remembered how much he hated seeing Mandy cry. He remembered how it felt to be gay, how it created this sort of fear that gripped him inside. But he also remembered how it felt like to take it up the ass and how great that felt. He remembered that little thing Ian used to do with his hips that hit that spot just right. He remembered that he called Ian, Gallagher and that sometimes he'd call him Firecrotch.

He remembered what it felt like for Mickey Milkovich to be in love. He remembered that it was scary and alien and made him want to punch something. He remembered that he'd used to hate Ian was much as he loved him, just because he made him feel. He remembered that Mickey Milkovich wasn't supposed to feel. He remembered how Ian's shit eating grin had used to make him squirm.

He remembered Ian most of all, over everything else.

When the wedding came, it wasn't anything great, just in some run down shitty church with the reception booked at the Alibi Room afterwards. It had been scheduled so that Ian would be there for the occasion and Lip had told Mickey he was sorry with pain in his eyes. Ian was bringing his boyfriend to the wedding, apparently they'd met on one of Ian's weekends off from the base and had been trading letters the entire time he was away. His name was Toby. Mickey had just shrugged and said it was alright, because he didn't have any claim to Ian anyway.

But it still hurt, they all knew it still hurt.

Still, it was Mandy and Lip's wedding and it wasn't fair for him to ruin it. So he put on a smile and a suit and he walked Mandy down the aisle. She looked beautiful in her long white dress that Mickey had worked double shifts at the construction site and painted some old lady's living room to held her afford, because he'd meant it when he'd said that there was no way she was returning her wedding dress afterwards. Mandy was all she had, she'd helped pay off his hospital bills and he'd been there for him whenever he needed her and even when he hadn't. The least he could do was help buy her dress.

She'd cried when she'd first put it on, with Mickey sitting there in the room, watching her and he'd had to run and get a roll of toilet paper because her mascara had been running down her face and they couldn't let it ruin the dress.

The multiple colours that had been in her hair when he'd first woken up in that hospital room, the colours that had been there in his few fleeting memories of her in the past were gone now and her hair was its natural rich brown. She had it curled and it feel over her shoulders, shiny and soft looking.

The bachelorette party had been Mandy's way of trying to cheer Mickey up, he knew that. She'd booted Lip out the door and made him go out with his brothers and she'd managed to get Mickey pretty reasonably drunk by the time that the male stripper came. It was just the two of them and that stripper, not the best of bachelorette parties, but Mickey had to admit that he had fun. Especially when he ended up fucking the stripper in the bathroom.

He hadn't had much sex in the past few years, only when he was drunk and Mandy dragged him out clubbing or something.

Lip winked at him when he delivered her down the aisle and handed his baby sister over and Mickey had shook his hand and smiled back because he was glad Mandy was going to get to be with someone who made her happy. And if Lip didn't do that, Mickey would just kill him for it. They all knew that.

Ian was Lip's best man and he stood on the opposite side of the alter to Mickey, with his brother Carl and all of Lip's sisters who'd been bridesmaids. Mickey stood on his own on Mandy's side of the alter, because none of their brothers had come, they didn't even know about the wedding. What little Mickey remembered about their brothers, he knew it was a wise decision for them to be absent.

He hadn't even met them yet, or at least the him with amnesia hadn't.

Mickey was one of the people who clapped the loudest when they said their 'I do's' and kissed and he honestly couldn't remember ever being any happier. Because if Mandy was happy then he was to, because he didn't have anyone else to celebrate for.

She'd attempted to teach him to dance and at the Alibi Room after Mandy and Lip had had their first dance to some cheesy song, Mandy made the DJ play 'You're gonna go far kid' and dragged him onto the dance floor. He'd gone bright red and it had been awkward because he didn't really want to dance and he didn't know how to dance, but he'd tried because it was Mandy. At the end of the song she'd laughed at him and fetched them a couple of shots that they downed with nothing more than a blink, because their throats were used to that familiar burn by now, they were Milkovichs after all.

While the rest of the party had gone on, Mickey sat at the bar talking to Kev who ran the joint and was half running the bar. He was a pretty decent guy, his wife was loud though. Although, not nearly as loud as the Gallaghers. He'd never really met them before, he couldn't remember anything about any of them other than Ian and the new version of him only knew Lip. He'd made sure to learn their names though. Fiona was the oldest and she was married to some guy called Jimmy who Lip told him was a car thief. Then there was Lip and Ian and a redheaded girl called Debbie who seemed like the quietest of all of them. Mickey wouldn't admit it, or maybe he would, he didn't know anymore, but the guy Carl kind of freaked him the hell out, he was definitely bordering on sociopathic and he made sure to stay the hell away from him. Then there was Liam who was the youngest and didn't look like he could possibly be related to any of them, but somehow was.

Lip's Dad Frank was passed out in the corner. Mickey didn't want to go near him either, because he remembered a little bit about Frank. He remembered that he wanted to kill Frank, but this Mickey didn't like the idea of killing anybody. Especially for a reason he couldn't remember, so he just stayed away.

"Heeeeey, Mickey!" a hand clapped down on his shoulder and he jumped a little bit.

On the other side of the bar, Kev smirked at the drunken Lip, who'd decided it would be a fun idea to drape himself across Mickey's shoulders. "How much have you had to drink?" Mickey asked him, pretty sure the idea of a wedding wasn't to get so drunk that you didn't remember it.

"Not enough," Lip said, his words slurring a little and Mickey rolled his eyes.

"Oh, I think you've had plenty," he said and then looked at Kev, "What's the best way to sober him up?"

He didn't want anything ruining Mandy's day. Not even her drunken husband.

Two minutes later Kev pushed a glass across the bar and Mickey picked it up and grimaced. "What the hell is in this?" he asked.

"Tomato juice, worchestshire sauce and lemon juice," Kev said, grinning kind of evilly, "Works every time on his Dad, trust me."

Mickey pulled a face, but twisted around slightly to get Lip the hell off him and onto a barstool. "Drink this," he instructed, tilting Lip's face up when his head lolled forwards. He was almost completely out of it.

"Is it alcoholic?" he mumbled.

"Yeah sure," Mickey muttered back and held the bottom of the glass as Lip chugged it back in one. It was only a couple of minutes before his eyes went wide and he turned a little green and Mickey just had time to snatch the offered bucket off of Kev before Lip was throwing up.

He grimaced and looked away, but that didn't really help the stench.

"What the hell did you do?" Ian asked him, coming over and rubbing his brother on the back, pulling a face at the contents of the bucket.

"Sobering him up," Mickey replied truthfully.

Lip lifted his head up a little and scowled, "I fucking hate you."

He laughed, he couldn't help it, "I'll remind you of that next time you're high and try to pick a fight with a club's bouncer."

"You have to admit that was a pretty good night though," Lip muttered, wiping his mouth on a napkin that Mickey handed him. He was pretty impressed, because whether it was the drink or the puking, Lip did seem to have sobered up.

"You weren't the one that got chatted up by a forty year old woman," Mickey said, grimacing at the memory, "And you would think it was a good night anyway, you were fucking high." Lip thought every time he was high was the best moment of his life.

He snorted, "That woman had fucking dodgy taste, she was obsessed with you."

"Oh thanks," Mickey replied, but he wasn't really offended.

"The answers going to be no now when I ask you to cook us breakfast in the morning, isn't it?" Lip asked, pouting slightly which looked sort of stupid.

Mickey just shrugged, "Oh I'll make Mandy breakfast, you can just sit and watch her eat it."

"My new wife wouldn't be that cruel," Lip said, sounding absolutely positive about that. They both looked at each other and laughed, because yeah, Mandy really would be that cruel. Whether or not she'd made vows that meant 'what's mine is yours'.

"She's a Milkovich, it comes with the territory," he said, smirking a little, which soon turned into a frown when Ian's new boyfriend sauntered over. He wrapped his arms around Ian's waist and smiled. It sort of made Mickey feel better that it took Ian a minute or so to actually realise he was being held. He'd been a bit busy frowning at Mickey.

The boyfriend, Toby was Ian's height with light brown hair and a stupid smile and the part of Mickey that was the old him wanted to punch him in the face, but the person he was now didn't really do all that well with senseless violence. Not unless he was high on coke that was.

"I don't believe we've met," Toby said, smiling at Mickey in a way that made his knuckles itch, "You walked Mandy down the aisle, didn't you?"

Mickey nodded, "Yeah, I'm the brother."

"She looked beautiful," Toby gushed and Mickey was starting to realise that he was one of those classic gays, one of the stereotypical ones. Mickey didn't know why that annoyed him a little bit. "Her dress was amazing."

Even though he was starting to realise he couldn't help but hate the guy talking to him, even Mickey couldn't deny what he was saying was true.

"It looked expensive," Ian put in, "Is she going to have to return it?"

Mickey snorted, "Like I'd let my baby sister return her wedding dress."

"Mick, you can't really steal a wedding dress," Ian said, frowning at him a little, "I'm guessing she hired it or something, that kind of means you have to return it."

"Yeah well, she didn't hire it," Mickey said, knocking back the shot of vodka that Lip knowingly handed to him. Lip was oddly silent though, like he knew this was a conversation that Mickey needed to be having on his own.

Ian was still frowning at him, "How the hell did she afford it then?"

And Mickey would admit he could see how unlikely it was sounding, that they'd actually managed to buy that dress. But it offended him a little that Ian seemed to be jumping straight to the conclusion that they'd acquired the dress by some dodgy means. "Mandy didn't," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I took double shifts and stuff to help her afford it."

"Doing what, pushing drugs?"

_Had the old him really been this bad?_

He hated that he already knew the answer to that question.

"Yeah, sure, we'll go with that," Mickey muttered, not wanting to have this argument because he knew it was all pointless anyway. That and he really didn't want to break his hand again punching something. "You mind if I cut out early?" he asked Lip, "I got shit I have to do."

He didn't, but he could tell Lip understood.

He nodded, "Yeah sure, man, I'll see you when we get back from our trip."

They couldn't afford a proper honeymoon, so they were spending the weekend in a hotel. A pretty nice hotel admittedly, so it was probably as good as a honeymoon. Calling it a trip though was probably exaggerating it a little.

"Have fun," he muttered and didn't look at Ian again as he moved across the make-shift dance floor to where Mandy was talking to Lip's sister Fiona.

She grinned at him, a little drunkenly when he approached, but because she was Mandy, she saw the pain in his eyes within a heartbeat. "I'm going to take off," he said, knowing his expression was apologetic. He didn't really want to leave, but he couldn't stay there any longer. He felt like he was about to be sick. "Have fun on your honeymoon."

Mandy wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "You okay?" she muttered in his ear and he nodded because her hair was sort of filling up his mouth with the way she was hugging him. "Thanks for everything, Mick," she said when they pulled apart, smoothing her hands down the front of the dress to emphasise what she was on about.

"You're all I have," he replied honestly, "You don't need to thank me."

Her expression told him that yes, she thought she did, but she didn't say anything else. She just touched his cheek briefly, fleetingly and then he was walking away. He didn't know quite where the hell he was going, but it just had to be away from here, away from Ian.

He was finding that it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide it when the person he had been and the person he was now collided together. They were worlds apart, but somehow the same and it confused the hell out of Mickey. He supposed because of that, he couldn't really expect anybody else to understand either.

So why did his brain keep telling him that Ian would know? That Ian would understand?


	12. Chapter 12

Ian watched Mickey walk away and he didn't understand. Sure, Mickey was the type to walk away when situations weren't to his liking, but not quite like that. He'd walk away after punching someone in the face or after dropping a snide comment. This felt almost as though he was giving up.

Ian had been watching Mickey all night, he didn't want to admit that, but it was true. He seemed different. He didn't know quite what it was. Mickey seemed calmer. He smiled at things, smiled when he was walking Mandy down the aisle, when she was saying her vows and he was laughing even while he was bright red when she made him dance. He kept expecting Mickey to storm off the dance floor, to hit something, but he just looked embarrassed and yet determined to dance with his sister.

He seemed more like the Mickey that Ian expected to see when him and Mandy were doing shots, knocking them back like it was juice rather than vodka. And the way that he had been sitting on the sidelines, just talking to Kev and nursing a beer, that had been Mickey-like too. But then he'd baffled Ian again by not throwing Lip off when his brother drunkenly lounged on Mickey. No, instead of throwing him off Mickey had handed him a pretty disgusting looking drink and he hadn't laughed when Lip had thrown up, he'd looked sort of grossed out and sort of concerned.

That had been what had made Ian go over, because it had confused the ever-loving hell out of him to see Mickey acting like a normal person. It made him a little bit sad, because he'd kind of liked the erratic side of Mickey. And it pissed him off because it seemed like Mickey could be civil to everyone other than Ian.

He'd gone over to see Mickey the first time that he'd gotten leave and Mickey had looked at him like he didn't even know him. Mickey was good at pretending, he'd always known that, but he'd thought maybe now that Mandy knew he was gay, it wouldn't be so hard for Mickey to admit that they had a thing going on. Or at the very least that they'd fucked. But no, apparently, for Mickey Milkovich, that was too much to ask.

He couldn't even lie about how much that had hurt. He'd spent his entire deployment panicking and worrying about Mickey and then it turned out that Mickey didn't even give two shits about him anymore. He supposed he should have seen that coming. He'd just been tricking himself into thinking that Mickey felt anything; at least he'd finally realised that.

And he had Toby now anyway, even if the guy did sort of annoy him sometimes. He was sweet though and he wasn't afraid to admit that he wanted Ian. So that was fine. Even if Mickey always had been a better fuck.

"Good job," Lip said, glaring at him and Ian blanched.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked, "You're not honestly expecting me to believe that he actually worked an honest job to help Mandy buy that dress. I hardly even believe he helped at all."

Even though maybe that was a little harsh. If Ian knew one thing for sure, it was that Mickey cared about Mandy. Nobody else could probably say the same thing.

Lip shook his head at him, looking incredulous and a little disgusted, which Ian wasn't used to. "Just forget everything you ever knew about him," Lip said, seeming even more sober than he had before; and even more angry that Ian had seen him in a long time, "He worked his ass off at the construction site, painted some old lady's living room and cleaned out a man down the road's gutters to pay for that dress and all because he didn't want Mandy to have to return it tomorrow."

Even though Ian was taller than his brother, Lip seemed to tower over him when he stood up. "He's been through a lot, Ian and he doesn't need you making the situation worse for him," Lip said and his eyes were practically on fire, "He doesn't know who the hell he's supposed to be, who he even wants to be and so he's trying to be everything all at once to make everyone else happy and do you have any fucking idea how much that stresses him out."

Ian opened his mouth to say that in fact, Mickey seemed more relaxed that he had ever seen him – except after they'd fucked, but Ian didn't want to think about that – but Lip was already walking off.

He walked over to Mandy and spoke to her for a second and Ian actually flinched under the weight of Mandy's death glare. Lip caught her around the waist when she moved to come over to him and Ian was sort of glad about that. He hated dealing with Mandy when she was pissed off at other people, which meant he knew he would like it even less when she was pissed at him.

Especially when he didn't really know what the hell for.

Mickey was a big boy, he was a  _Milkovich_ , he could handle a little criticism.

He didn't say anything to anyone when he left, he just walked out, because he couldn't deal with the accusing way that his two best friends were looking at him, one of them his own brother. He couldn't deal with the fact that he thought maybe he should be feeling guilty, because that didn't make sense. Mickey hadn't even had the courtesy to say anything to him, he'd just pretended like they'd never been anything. So why the hell should Ian feel bad about upsetting him a little?

As far as he was concerned Mickey deserved it.

After everything he'd ever said, after everything he'd ever not done to make all the sneaking around and the lying worth it, Mickey deserved it.

He didn't know why he went to the baseball field where he and Mickey had used to get high before fucking in the dugouts, but he did. Maybe it was the nostalgia of it all, maybe it was because he hadn't really been focussing on where the hell he was walking to. Maybe it was fate if he believed in that sort of thing. He didn't know. All he knew was that he sort of regretted it when he saw that he wasn't the only one who'd decided to go there.

Mickey was sitting cross-legged on second base, a cigarette trapped between two of his fingers, but he didn't really seem to be smoking it. Ian only saw him take one drag before it burnt out and he flicked it away. He stood behind him, just watching him and maybe that was creepy, but he couldn't help it.

He'd never seen Mickey like that before. He looked weirdly calm, but stressed out like Lip had said all at the same time. He kept scrubbing his hands through his hair and Ian half expected him to tear it out or something. He thought maybe that action had replaced the ones he did with his mouth, pushing his tongue into the corner and rubbing a thumb over his bottom lip. Ian didn't know why that thought sort of upset him, maybe it was because he'd always liked those little habits of Mickey's.

When Mickey started humming softly under his breath, Ian was surprised, because he'd never heard Mickey sing before. He remember Mickey always telling him to stop singing, but had always got the impression that the ex-con didn't mean it. He'd never thought of Mickey as actually being able to carry a tune, but him sitting there, the humming turning to singing under his breath. Ian didn't know the song, but it was about remembering as far as he could tell. It wouldn't have mattered what he was singing, just hearing Mickey's voice made him shiver.

He walked over to Mickey then for some reason and sat beside him and he could feel the older guy tense up in response to him being there. "I can go if you like," Ian offered, thinking it was only fair since Mickey had been their first.

"No, it's fine," Mickey muttered back, not looking at him and Ian sort of wished he would.

And Ian was used to be the one that always had to speak, so that was why he said, "I'm sorry about before." It was to break the silence, it wasn't because he was maybe feeling slightly guilty now for absolutely no reason at all. He put it down to Mickey acting distinctly un-Mickey. He kept waiting for the ex-con to snap out of it and tell him to fuck off.

"You don't have to apologise for anything," Mickey said after a minute and he sounded strange, "I get it."

Ian didn't completely understand why there was a sense of finality in that statement, but it was there nevertheless. "Lip says you have a job at the construction company," he said because he couldn't think of anything else to say, "That's good."

"It pays the bills," Mickey said, still not looking at him.

"If you don't like it, you could go to community college and get some qualifications or something," Ian suggested, even though he didn't really know why, they'd had this conversation before, "You could get something better then."

He shifted uncomfortably for a minute before he admitted, "I actually already did that, but the construction company pays well and I don't really want to risk it trying to switch jobs." He shrugged, seeming to need to move rather than needing the shrug to insinuate anything in particular.

Ian just stared at him, "You went to community college?"

"Yeah," Mickey said, his tone slightly clipped, obviously not liking the surprise he heard in Ian's voice. But he couldn't help it, he was used to the Mickey who wouldn't have been caught dead going to school when he didn't have to. "Mandy went as well, did this hair and beauty thing."

Ian didn't know why Mickey was telling him that. He normally wasn't one to give additional information. But Ian got the impression that maybe he was just proud of Mandy for that. Or maybe he just needed to talk. He supposed probably the latter.

"That's great," he said, sort of numbly.

Mickey snorted, "You weren't the one she decided to practice on." He turned his had slightly and pointed to the black stud in his left earlobe that Ian hadn't noticed before. He didn't know how the hell he hadn't noticed it, maybe because he was always a little busy trying not to get a hard on around Mickey.

The ex-con turned away quickly again and Ian wondered what he'd seen in his face.

Mickey lit up another cigarette and took a deep drag, letting his hands hang down in between his legs, his knuckles brushing the ground. Ian didn't know why, but he felt like he wanted to reach out and touch Mickey. Like maybe Mickey needed some sort of comfort. Or maybe he did. He didn't know anymore.

"You heard from your Dad at all?" Ian asked, trying to drag a reaction out of Mickey, because he knew how to deal with a pissed off Mickey. He almost needed to see it, to see Mickey treat him like he used to. Because when Mickey got angry, he actually seemed to acknowledge Ian more than he ever normally did. Definitely more than he acknowledged him now.

Mickey didn't get angry though, he hardly even reacted. Although he maybe did look a little surprised. "No," he replied after a minute, his voice dead-sounding.

"I kind of expected you to take off," Ian admitted when it was obvious Mickey wasn't going to say anything else, "Thought you'd be scared of someone else finding out and just running." He'd honestly thought he'd come back and find out that Mickey had disappeared, or that he'd get a letter from Mandy saying that he'd bolted.

"I wouldn't leave Mandy," Mickey said and there was a seriousness in his voice that Ian had never heard before. Mickey was only ever serious when he was scared, but he didn't seem scared now. He just seemed stressed, like something was eating him up inside.

"Glad there's someone you'd stick around for then," he said before he could stop himself. The words just seemed to trip off of his tongue before he could stop them. He thought maybe it was the old sourness bubbling up, the sourness that stemmed from Mickey bolting and running off to juvie at the first sign of trouble. He'd never quite gotten over that, even though he'd let Mickey carry on as though nothing had happened.

There was a long silence and Ian considered leaving. He even stood up, but that was when Mickey spoke. "He loved you, you know," he said and his voice was sort of dead-sounding again, but nervous as well, panicked. Yet still dead. It didn't quite make sense. "Even when he pushed you away, he still loved you."

And Ian thought that had to be hands down the weirdest thing that Mickey had ever said to him.

"What?" he asked, staring down at Mickey who still wouldn't look at him. He was chewing his bottom lip though, hard enough to draw blood. "Mickey, that made no sense, whatsoever."

And yet some small part of him thought that maybe Mickey had just told him that he loved him. Or maybe that he had. He didn't even know. He wondered if Mickey knew, or maybe he was just saying words without really thinking

Mickey laughed, but the sound was hollow. "Yeah I guess it didn't did it?" he muttered, staring off into the night with a small frown on his face. "Did you know I think I'm jealous of him sometimes," he said after a minute, when Ian was planning on just walking away again because he thought maybe Mickey was on something, "Sure, nobody liked him and he was a dick, but he had you."

He snorted.

"And then I think that actually I sort of hate him, because he was too much of a coward to open his mouth and tell you that he didn't just think you were some quick fuck. He didn't have the courage to tell you that you were everything," Mickey's voice was bitter-sounding. Ian thought he looked like he was about to be sick. "I keep thinking that if I could go back in time, I'd make it all change, I'd make him say those words that he always thought, but then I think that maybe that wouldn't be a good idea, because then he would still be a dick and I wouldn't be here at all."

Ian frowned, still not knowing what the hell he was on about. He was talking like he was two separate people, except there wasn't. There was just him and it didn't make any sense.

"I know you probably hate me and everything and I don't even know why I'm saying this," he carried on, scrubbing a hand through his hair again, "Maybe it's because I don't want you to hate me, because I'm not him, but I feel like him and I remember what it feels like to be in love with you and I probably still am a little bit, but more than that I don't like the idea of you believing what he said about you being nothing but a warm mouth."

And that was a sensitive subject, those words, Ian hated them. He hated that memory, the anger he'd heard in Mickey's voice. Sure, a part of him wanted to talk to Mickey about that. Wanted to sort all of that out. And Mickey had definitely admitted to being in love that time, he'd definitely said I love you, but Ian couldn't cope with that. He knew from the way Mickey was talking about himself like he was two different people that he was on something. Maybe he'd been on something for the entire wedding, probably.

Either way, Ian didn't want to have to deal with Mickey when he came down from his high or whatever the fuck he was experiencing right now.

"Mick, I don't know what you're on," Ian said and Mickey still didn't look at him, like he was afraid to, "But just go home okay, you're not making any sense." And then he just walked away, because he could deal with war and killing and God knows what else, anything else, but he didn't think he could deal with Mickey Milkovich's weird moods anymore.

He couldn't deal with the way it made his heart hurt in his chest. He just couldn't.


	13. Chapter 13

Ian found out the hard way about Lip and Mandy being home from their 'honeymoon' when they stormed over to the Gallagher house and Mandy punched him in the face. "Okay, that was not the way I had in mind for this conversation to start," Lip said, grabbing his new wife around the waist and dragging her back.

Mandy ignored him and glared down at where Ian was lying crumpled on the floor. She hit fucking hard; but then she was a Milkovich. "What the fuck did you say to him?" she yelled, looking like she wanted to hit him again.

Thankfully, Lip kept a tight hold of her.

"Who?"

"Mickey, you fuckwit," Mandy snarled at him and he'd never been on this end of her anger before. It was unusual and uncomfortable and he didn't like it. "What the fuck did you say to him, cause he's fucking moping right now and even this Mickey doesn't mope!"

_This Mickey?_

Ian frowned. "I just told him to go home," he said, which was the truth. He didn't know what the hell he'd done that could have pissed Mickey off and he certainly couldn't imagine the guy _moping_. He was probably just drunk. "He was on something and talking about himself like there were two of him."

And he honestly thought that would smooth the situation out, but all it did was make Mandy lunge towards him again and Lip frowned. "Mandy, calm down, Jesus," Lip dragged her back again and then looked at Ian, "What was he talking about when he was talking about himself like there were two of him?"

 _Did that mean Mickey did that a lot_?

"Just saying like the old him or something didn't mean it and that he loved me or something and that the new him did as well, but that he sort of hated the old him and I don't know, he wasn't making any sense."

Ian had had a few days to process it and he still hadn't quite wrapped his head around it.

"He told you he loved you and you seriously told him he was on something?" Lip asked and to say he looked incredulous would have been an understatement, "What the fuck, Ian?"

And he could maybe understand why Lip would be surprised. Because hearing an 'I love you' from Mickey had used to be everything he had ever wanted. He'd used to dream about it, to wonder if it would ever happen and then recently he'd convinced himself that he'd just been some delusional kid who had it all wrong from the very beginning. He'd convinced himself it was nothing but sex. And now he had two Mickey's who apparently loved him – which made  _no_  sense, whatsoever – and it was a bit of an overload.

"Yeah, because I know Mickey and he just would have punched me for it sometime later if he thought I actually believed him," Ian said and that was the thing, he didn't quite know yet if he believed him or not. It was a lot to take in. They had to give him that at least.

Or maybe Ian did believe him, that would probably explain why he'd broken up with Toby for no reason whatsoever. He was always doing stupid things because of Mickey Milkovich, he was always sacrificing things for him. Giving up people. He'd given up Kash for Mickey, knew he would have given up the army, all of his dreams if Mickey had asked him to.

He was sort of glad and sort of disappointed that he hadn't.

"He wasn't on anything, Ian," Lip said, looking exasperated and still holding Mandy even though she seemed to have calmed down. He obviously didn't want to risk it. Ian didn't know when he'd clambered back onto his feet, he couldn't remember, but he only then realised he was upright again.

"You honestly expect me to believe that?"

Mandy scowled at him, obviously not liking his lack of faith in her brother. But could she really blame him?

"To be fair I didn't believe it at first either," Lip admitted and Ian felt a little better then, almost smiled, because it felt strange not having Lip in his corner, having Lip against him, "I went around and tried to fucking kill him for acting like he didn't know you, for upsetting you."

Ian hadn't known that. It probably showed on his face.

"Mandy, let me tell him," Lip said, looking down at his new wife, "Ian isn't going to go off and start running through the streets screaming it and Mickey wouldn't care about him knowing, he sort of already told him anyway."

Mandy scowled at him and Ian could see the love that she had for her brother written all over her face. He didn't know why, but that surprised him a little bit, because he'd never thought they were that close. Sure, they were the closest of all of the Milkovich siblings, but that had never been saying much.

After what felt like a life time.

And that was how it all seemed to start. Ian felt like he'd never known anything up until that point, like he'd sort of just been drifting along clutching at straws. He felt like suddenly a brand new chapter of a story was starting up and it all started with the words, "Ian, Mickey has amnesia."


	14. Chapter 14

Mandy called it moping, but Mickey just called it distracting himself.

He sat on his bed, a book resting against his knees and he was trying to read it, he really was. It just wasn't going to very well. Because he kept remembering. He kept remembering the most random things.

Things about his mum, who he'd never really thought about before. Things like how it felt to have his Dad's hands around his throat, trying to strangle the life out of him. The time Mandy had pierced her own nose and it had swollen up, he remembered how it had looked, how he'd laughed at her. He remembered that his older brother Joey had gotten pink eye once and everyone had taken the piss out of him for months. He remembered pissing on first base during his little league baseball game. He remembered Ian being on second base, remembered Ian telling him that in the dugouts. He remembered why baseball made him think of sex. He remembered playing video games with Mandy on his birthday one year and her being the only one who had remembered. He remembered everything about Juvie. He remembered how to be Mickey Milkovich completely, how he used to speak, how he used to act.

He remembered so much that he thought maybe it felt like everything.

He remembered until he didn't want to remember anymore.

He remembered everything about Ian, every stupid little thing he'd ever told him, every little trait he had. He remembered the harsh words, the desperation and the fear when he thought about Frank blabbing his mouth. He remembered the look in Ian's eyes when Mickey had lied to him and told him that he was nothing but a warm mouth.

It was like telling Ian how that old Mickey had felt and telling him that he knew he still felt the same way even now had opened some sort of floodgate. Everything had just come rushing back to him, without him even wanting it to. It was like he'd needed the pain, the pain in his chest to become so intense that it made him forget everything but the pain. And forgetting made him remember. Only Ian Gallagher could make him feel that sort of pain.

It was weird and it was uncomfortable, because his head suddenly felt too full. He felt different, but not different. He felt different because this was the him that he hadn't been for so long. But he didn't feel different because he'd been that him for a lot longer and he also didn't feel different, because even though he remembered, he didn't feel like he was that person anymore. Okay, admittedly remembering had brought some of the anger back, because he remembered where that anger had always come from.

The harsh words, the insults, the bitterness, that had all stemmed from being downtrodden, from being batted around and stamped upon for his entire childhood, his entire life. Nobody had ever given a shit about Mickey Milkovich. Not really. He'd known that, he'd accepted that. He'd accepted that his Dad didn't like him, let alone want him as a son and his mum didn't give enough of a shit to not leave him behind. He'd accepted that Mandy was probably going to be the only one who would ever give two shits. And that had all been fine. He'd accepted that from an early age and moved on. He'd compensated by making sure nobody ever  _would_  like him, because he didn't need them to. Nobody ever had before, why should they start now?

And then Ian Gallagher had come along and he'd cared when he wasn't supposed to and he'd contradicted every single thing that Mickey had ever thought, decided or felt. He'd crashed unknowingly through ever single barrier Mickey had put up to stop himself getting hurt and Mickey had freaked. He didn't know how to deal with that, he didn't want to deal with that. He wanted sex and Gallagher gave great sex, but that was supposed to be it.

He wasn't supposed to make Mickey  _feel_.

But that was where the difference was. That was where the difference would probably always be. Mickey could become that Mickey again, he could become rude and harsh and essentially a dick, but he wouldn't do that what Mickey had done. He wouldn't deny being in love, he wouldn't deny anything to Ian, because he wasn't that much of a coward. He wanted Ian more than he wanted to hide away; which meant he probably should have explained the whole situation of loving him a little better than blabbering like an idiot.

To be fair though, he'd panicked.

He swore under his breath when someone knocked on the door, because he didn't want to move. He wanted to sit there and try and forget that he was remembering and try and forget that the pain in his chest that made him feel like he was drowning. He even thought about ignoring whoever it was until they started banging on it with their fist.

Muttering under his breath, he jerked it open and his eyes flew open in surprise when hands grabbed a hold of either side of his head. Ian just stared at him, his face so close that Mickey could practically taste his breath. He stared like he was searching for something and that was when Mickey knew that he'd found out about Mickey's little problem.

"They said you can't remember," Ian said eventually, his voice broken sounding. Like he'd been crying. And yes, his eyes were red-rimmed too. "You let me yell at you, let me hate you and you couldn't even remember."

Mickey didn't know when he'd reached up and grabbed a hold of Ian's forearms. He dug his fingertips into Ian's skin, held on tight, just to convince himself he wasn't imagining this. "I remembered you," he said, because Mickey wasn't going to lie, not this time, "I remembered your voice in my head."

How could he possibly forget him? Not completely. He'd never forgotten him completely.

Ian's fingers pushed into the back of his hair and when their mouths crashed together, it was desperate and needy and everything Mickey felt like he had ever wanted. He'd hated himself when he remembered that he'd never let Ian kiss him.  _"Kiss me and I'll cut your fucking tongue out."_  He remembered that and he'd hated himself, but he didn't anymore. He thought maybe it was worth the wait.

He pulled Ian into the house, with his fingers digging into the redhead's hips. He heard Ian kick the door shut behind them, but he couldn't concentrate on anything more than the feel of Ian's fingers in his hair and his lip against his. He couldn't focus past the tongue in his mouth and god  _that taste!_  He couldn't even explain it, couldn't define it, he just knew that it was the best thing he'd ever tasted, the best thing he could ever taste. It made him suck Ian's tongue into his mouth, drag them closer together like maybe then it would never end. Because he never wanted it to end. He never wanted to let Ian go, not for a single second.

He pushed at Ian's shirt, pushed his hands up underneath it, needed to feel his flesh, craving it like a drug. And when he felt it, he moaned, because the contact sent shivers running through his body, like electricity. It was amazing and addictive and he dug his fingers hard into Ian's sides because he had to make sure that this was real, that he was really there because Mickey didn't feel like he deserved for anything to feel this good.

Ian's hands pulled his shirt from his body and Mickey shivered a little at the cold air, but then Ian was pressing against him and he forgot to notice. Ian's hands slipped behind his back, pressing into his bare shoulder blades, nails scraping against flesh and making Mickey moan deep in his chest because he'd never felt anything as good as that feeling. He dropped his own hands down from Ian's sides to grab his ass, to pull their crotches flush together and making them both gasp. But then that wasn't enough and he stuffed his hand down into the narrow space between Ian's flesh and his skinny jeans and he squeezed the hot, smooth globes and caused Ian to bite down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, but neither of them cared.

Mickey's shirt was the next thing to go and he made this weird whimpering sound because he had to pull his hands out of the back of Ian's trousers to get it off, but then Ian's hands were roaming over his pale torso and he was bending and teasing one of Mickey's nipples into a hard peak with his teeth. Mickey's breath stuttered out of his lungs and he grabbed at Ian's head because as good as that felt, it only made him want to kiss him again.

The redhead laughed breathlessly right before their mouths crashed together again. Mickey thought maybe Ian was feeling that desperation too, maybe they really were on exactly the same wavelength because it seemed like it what with the way that Ian was pressing up against him, clutching him so tight that it was almost hard for the both of them to breathe and there wasn't even air between them, but it didn't matter. Because this was what they needed. This was what they were both craving.

Mickey tackled Ian's belt, pulling it completely out of the loops, hearing it clatter to the floor as Ian backed him up further. He thought maybe Ian was heading for the couch, but they never made it because Mickey pushed Ian's jeans down and they seemed to tangle around both of them and sent them crashing down to the floor.

He couldn't help but laugh even as he kissed Ian, even as he pulled away just long enough to drag the offending item of clothing off of the redhead. And Ian laughed as well and it was quite possibly the best sound Mickey had ever heard. Except, no, the moan that Ian made when Mickey reached down between them and palmed Ian's cock through the fabric of his boxers,  _that_  was the best sound.

Mickey wasn't wearing underwear underneath his slacks and he'd never been more grateful for his laziness as he was in that moment. Ian's nails dug into his bare ass as he pulled Mickey on top and Mickey rested on his elbows either side of Ian's head, intent on kissing him to death as their hips ground against each other. He pushed his fingers into Ian's short hair, relishing in the feel of it because  _fuck_  his hair was soft. His skin was soft as well, the softest thing Mickey had ever felt and he couldn't stop touching Ian. He thought he would have died if someone had made him. He couldn't stop dragging his fingers over Ian's hair, over his neck and arms. Couldn't stop himself from licking a line down Ian's neck and tasting the saltiness of the sweat there.

And when Ian rolled them so that he was the one pinning Mickey, they just stared at each other for a minute because Mickey thought Ian was realising then that this was the most perfect moment that there had ever been. It wasn't like any of the sessions that Mickey could now remember. That had been great, but that had been fucking. No, this,  _this_  was something so much more. Mickey would have called it making love, but even that didn't feel adequate.

Ian lifted off slightly so that Mickey could drag his boxers off his hips and they were kicked away, sliding under the couch and Mickey pressed his thumbs into Ian's hipbones because he hadn't ever thought of hipbones as being sexy before, but Ian's were. His teeth found Ian's shoulder for a second and his tongue lapped over a scar that was there that he knew he made and for a second he thought he could remember making it, but his head was a jumble with all the memories that needed sorting through, but at the same time it was blank because Ian's hands on his thighs, shifting his legs up a little was distracting.

Ian pressed his mouth against the scar on Mickey's shoulder in return and smiled down at him, making sure Mickey was watching as he sucked two fingers into his mouth. When he circled them around Mickey's puckered entrance, pressed them inside just slightly, Ian closed the distance again and caught Mickey's gasp-like moan in his mouth, swallowing the sound.

His entire body felt like it was on fire, but in the best way possible as Ian slowly pumped his fingers in and out of Mickey's hole and when they were taken away, Mickey felt like screaming in frustration. Ian actually laughed at him, obviously seeing something akin to that desperation, that loss in Mickey's expression and he kissed Mickey gently, more gently than they had been doing, more gentle than they had ever been with each other before as slowly he lined himself up.

Mickey made this weird snarling sound as Ian pushed inside, because it burned, but it felt amazing. He could feel every inch of Ian as he eased in and there were a lot of inched. He thought he could feel that thick vein and every bump and ridge and he had to close his eyes because the lights in his brain were threatening to blind him. Ian's breath stuttered out of him and Mickey dug his fingers into Ian's shoulders as he hitched his legs up higher to wrap them around Ian's waist; and that movement made Ian slide in right up to the hilt and it hit that spot inside of Mickey that had him writhing and practically screaming and Ian took that as the sign to  _fucking move_  and when he did it was the most glorious thing that Mickey had ever felt.

It wasn't a pounding like it usually was, but it wasn't completely slow either. It was  _right_. Ian slid his arms under Mickey, his hands behind Mickey's head, holding him as he slid into him and it felt almost like he was cradling Mickey. Mickey had never felt protected before, he'd never needed to be, but he felt like he was then. He felt safe and he felt like he was in the only place he ever wanted to be and he pressed his lips against the side of Ian's neck and moaned because he didn't have the vocabulary or the ability right then to explain to Ian how this all felt. He wanted to tell him, wanted to tell him how amazing this all was, how amazing he was, but each time it just came out as, "F- _Fuuuck_."

He thought maybe that about said it all though actually.

He could feel Ian smiling against his skin and he lifted up a little, peeling their chests apart what with all the sweat slicked against their flesh. When Ian kissed him, Mickey could feel the lazy slide of his tongue right the way down to his toes and he moaned again into Ian's mouth because hopefully that would explain how great that felt. He knew it wasn't quite adequate, but he hoped it would do.

Mickey came first when Ian rolled his hips in that way that did Mickey in every single time – that he could definitely remember – and he thought his ass must have been doing something pretty amazing because Ian sounded like he was choking and then he was right there with Mickey in bliss. Mickey could have sworn his heart stopped beating for a second, or maybe it was his breathing that stopped. Or maybe it was time. He didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted to scream, except when he opened his mouth no sound came out, but his eyes rolled back into his head and Ian moaned low and sort of feverish against his skin and bit him lightly and it was with that bite that they started shuddering with nothing but pure, sated pleasure.

There was nothing but the sounds of them panting for a long few minutes and Mickey moaned slightly under his breath when Ian pulled out and that made Ian chuckle. "Don't even think about moving," he said when the redhead started to lift up and he sounded more like the old him then than he ever had before.

Ian just smiled and lowered himself back down, supporting himself on his elbows, his face inches away from Mickey's. Ian kept running his fingers through Mickey's hair and Mickey found his eyes closing because that actually felt sort of nice. He lowered his legs from wrapping around Ian's waist when they started to get a little cramped and settled them either side of Ian's, pressing them together.

"I love you," Ian said, the look in his eyes saying that he was expecting Mickey to push him away and that old part of himself inwardly flinched at what Ian was saying, but the new him punched the old him in the face and told him to shut the fuck up because it wasn't like anyone but him could hear Ian say those words and it wasn't like he didn't feel the same way.

He smoothed his palms up and down Ian's back, feeling the bumps of his spine and Ian seemed to relax slightly, like the fact that Mickey was still willing to touch him was a positive sign. "I know," Mickey said softly, nudging Ian's nose with his in a way that was really stupid but kind of nice as well.

Ian smirked, "You're supposed to say love you too."

"Well I was going to get to that, but then you opened your mouth," Mickey told him, glaring without any venom at all, so it probably wasn't really glaring at all.

Ian stuck his tongue out at him and Mickey darted up and sucked the muscle into his mouth, making Ian's eyes widen slightly before he relaxed and pressed down into the kiss. And Mickey would have happily stayed like that forever, mapping out the inside of Ian's mouth, feeling a heartbeat against his chest and not knowing if it was his or Ian's. Except apparently, that wasn't supposed to happen.

"Holy  _shit_!" Mandy squealed and Mickey twisted his head to see his sister standing there with her hands clapped over her eyes.

Lip walked in not far behind her, "What what's wrong?" And then he looked up and saw them there and swore loudly. "Ian, dammit, I don't need to see that!" he looked like he was about to be sick, "Please tell me you're not having sex."

"The stickiness in my ass would imply not," Mickey said, not knowing why he wasn't freaking out because somewhere inside of himself he felt like he should be. He licked a line across Ian's neck again and then bit down, which dragged a moan out of the younger guy's throat.

"Fuck, what did you just do!" Lip was practically screaming, "Just. . . ugh! No, just stop?"

"Would you rather we stand up?" Ian asked, his fingers still playing in Mickey's hair and making his back arch like a cat when his nails scraped over his scalp. Ian chuckled and did it again, which made Mickey dig his fingertips into Ian's spine.

"Please put some clothes on," Mandy practically begged.

Mickey smirked slightly, "No, I'm comfy."

That and there was the possessive side of him that was making him practically feel sick at the thought of someone else seeing Ian completely naked. Which was stupid, because Lip was his brother and Mandy was. . . well a girl. But still. He couldn't help it.

"Will you at least move to your room?" Lip asked, sounding just like Mandy, practically begging.

"Maybe we should," Ian muttered, his voice low, just for Mickey. He nudged Mickey's jaw with his nose, his tongue flicking out and tasting it. "Or we could get in the shower," he suggested and the look in his eyes was almost enough to make Mickey hard again.  _Almost_ , because even Mickey's stamina wasn't that great.

He was rolling them onto their feet before Ian had even really finished speaking.

"Oh for fuck's sake, you could have told me you were standing up," Mandy said, having just opened her eyes again and Mickey couldn't help but laugh.

"Sorry Mands," he muttered as they passed her, even though he wasn't really sorry at all.

Ian was pressed up flush against his back before they'd even made it through his bedroom door.


	15. Chapter 15

Mickey fidgeted about where he was standing, chewing on the corner of his mouth frantically. He felt like a deer caught in headlights. Part of him wanted to bolt, wanted to say how stupid all of this was, but that was mostly the old him. Mickey had changed enough to want to keep put.

He was surrounded by young families and he felt slightly out of place. Maybe more than slightly, but he couldn't help it. Some of them were looking at him, obviously wondering who he was to the soldier he was waiting for, but Mickey just gritted his teeth and waited.

Ian was one of the first to come running out, panting slightly, but laughing as he saw Mickey. And Mickey relaxed at the sight of that shit eating grin. "Fuck Gallagher, you're late!" Mickey said, half-shouted to him as Ian walked over.

"Sorry, I'll tell the pilot to fly faster next time," Ian retorted, dropping his stuff and grabbing the sides of Mickey's face, pulling him in for a brutal, crushing kiss. Mickey laughed into the redhead's mouth at his enthusiasm and nipped at his lower lip.

"I missed you," Ian muttered when he pulled back.

Mickey smirked, "Well, I'd fucking hope so, it's been a year."

Ian socked him lightly around the side of the head and Mickey rolled his eyes as he grabbed up Ian's bag. "Get your ass in gear, Gallagher, we're late!" he said, not evening caring that there were people watching them, staring at them. He'd rather face these people than the wrath of his sister if they turned up much later.

They made it just in time. Well, sort of. They ran into the room just in time to hear the first twin scream and Mickey had wished they'd been later when he almost threw up at the sight of the second baby being born. "That is not something I needed to see. . .  _ever_!" he said, grimacing and turning away, trying to focus on his sister's red face instead.

"Fuck you Mickey," she screamed at him and he instinctively reached out to grab a hold of her flailing hand since Lip was now holding the first baby, bouncing it in his arms. Mickey winced when Mandy squeezed his fingers hard enough to break something, but kept his mouth shut.

The second twin arrived with a sort of coughing scream, its eyes wide and bulging. She was tiny, a lot smaller than her brother and Mickey didn't know why that immediately made him dub her his favourite. He didn't normally do that, didn't decide on favourites, but he did then.

And later on, he sat in an armchair with her and touched her parted lips gently with a forefinger. Lip was nodding off with his son in his arms and Mandy was curled up fast asleep. Most of the Gallaghers had cleared out by some stroke of luck, which left Mickey alone; or about as alone as he could be with the twins and the happy couple.

He jumped a little bit when Ian's arms wound around his shoulder and it was the redhead taking advantage of the fact that he was holding a baby, because otherwise Mickey would have shrugged him off. He wouldn't have been able to explain why, he just would have.

"So guess what I decided," Ian said, his chin resting on Mickey's shoulder and he reached around to touch the baby's cheek gently.

"I'm sure you're going to tell me," he replied, unconsciously leaning back against Ian since he couldn't really get away and to be fair, he hadn't seen Ian in almost a year.

Ian bit his cheek lightly in retribution. "Shut up you," he muttered, "I was just going to tell you that I was asking about extending my tour of duty."

Mickey could feel something inside of him tense up and freeze, maybe it was his heart. Maybe it was his soul. He didn't have any right to tell Ian what to do, he knew that, but he wanted to tell him to stay. He wanted to cart him off where nobody else would find him and never let him go. It seemed like Ian was always leaving and in a way Mickey was okay with that, because it was his dream and all that shit. But still, he hated it as well.

"Oh." He didn't know what else to say.

"I turned them down," Ian said, his voice low and husky sounding, right by Mickey's ear, making the words seem all the more private, all the more personal, "Told them I had something much better to be doing with my time now."

If he didn't smirk, he thought he was going to cry and that was just stupid.

"Oh, do you now?" he asked, shivering when Ian rubbed their cheeks together, almost cat-like.

Ian chuckled in his ear and nibbled on his earlobe lightly, making Mickey's eyes slide closed. "Yeah, told them I was going to take up knitting or something," he said and it Mickey had had his hands free, he would have punched Ian.

"Could you be any more gay?" Mickey asked him, turning his head a little to narrow his eyes at the redhead.

Ian smirked and shrugged a little. "Probably," he admitted and Mickey forgot to be pissed off at him when he gently pressed their lips together. Mickey was always forgetting what he was supposed to be doing when Ian did that. Because that was the one thing that would never change: everything was always Gallagher's fault.


End file.
